Craig Mason
Craig Mason writes followmy.ai's coverage of AI tools, agents, and the economics of building with them — what works, what leaks money, and what to skip. The focus is the builder's view: how each story changes the stack you actually run.
51 articles
- Jul 27, 2026
When AI Agents Go Rogue: What Builders Need to Know About Data Destruction Risks
Exploring the risks and safeguards for AI agents that accidentally destroy production data, based on a trending incident.
- Jul 26, 2026
The New Rules of Context Engineering for Claude 5: What Builders Need to Know
How builders can optimize prompts and input structure to get the most out of Claude 5's capabilities while managing costs and reliability.
- Jul 25, 2026
Claude Opus 5 is the flagship I'll actually use daily, and that's the point
Anthropic's Claude Opus 5 targets cheap, high-volume everyday tasks over benchmark bragging rights, though no per-token price was disclosed at launch.
- Jul 22, 2026
Traders think Claude Opus 5 is days away — here's what I'm actually hoping for
Traders are pricing in an imminent Claude Opus 5 release — here's why I'm cautiously excited and what I actually want fixed in my daily Claude workflow.
- Jul 22, 2026
OpenAI and Hugging Face Security Incident: What Builders Need to Know
An analysis of the recent security incident at OpenAI and Hugging Face, its implications for AI builders, and actionable steps to mitigate risks.
- Jul 19, 2026
Apple's OpenAI Dragnet Just Grew to 40 Ex-Employees — And It's Not About ChatGPT
Apple sent legal preservation letters to about 40 ex-employees now at OpenAI, and the size of that dragnet reveals this feud is about hardware, not chatbots.
- Jul 18, 2026
SnapState: Why Persistent State Is the Next Frontier for AI Agents
SnapState brings persistent state to AI agents, solving the amnesia problem in complex workflows.
- Jul 17, 2026
Gemini 3.5 Pro's 2M context and $250 Deep Think: worth it or noise?
Gemini 3.5 Pro brings a 2M-token context window and a $250 Deep Think tier — here's my honest read on what's worth caring about and what's noise.
- Jul 16, 2026
The best grade on the 2026 AI Safety Index is a C+ — and that scares me
The Future of Life Institute's 2026 AI Safety Index gave its top grade of C+ to Anthropic, while xAI, DeepSeek and Mistral failed — here's why that ceiling worr
- Jul 13, 2026
Grok's Coding CLI Quietly Uploads Your Whole Repo. Here's the 3-Minute Audit to Run.
Grok Build CLI v0.2.93 uploads your entire repo and full git history to xAI, and the privacy toggle doesn't stop it — here's how to protect any agentic coding t
- Jul 13, 2026
The Hidden Cost of AI Coding Assistants: Why Token Waste Should Matter to Builders
AI coding assistants waste tokens before reading your prompts—here's why builders should care and how to mitigate the costs.
- Jul 12, 2026
Why AI Agent Failures Go Unnoticed Until Users Complain
A builder-focused analysis of why AI agent failures often go undetected until users complain, and how to instrument systems for earlier failure detection.
- Jul 11, 2026
Apple vs. OpenAI: What Builders Need to Know About the Trade Secrets Lawsuit
Apple's lawsuit against OpenAI over trade secrets could disrupt the AI ecosystem—here's how builders can prepare.
- Jul 10, 2026
GPT-5.6: What Builders Need to Know About the Latest AI Buzz
A builder-focused analysis of GPT-5.6's potential impact on AI development workflows, costs, and reliability, based on its trending discussion in the AI communi
- Jul 09, 2026
Grok 4.5: Why Builders Should Care About X's Latest Move
Grok 4.5 signals X's AI ambitions, but builders should approach with cautious optimism.
- Jul 08, 2026
Google Slipped Gemini 3.5 Pro Again — Here's Why the $225B Jolt Actually Matters
Google pushed Gemini 3.5 Pro to July 17 after a second slip and a rebuild, wiping ~$225B off Alphabet — here's why trust matters more than the money.
- Jul 08, 2026
Rowboat: Why Builders Are Betting on Local-First AI Alternatives
An analysis of Rowboat, a new local-first AI tool gaining attention as builders seek alternatives to cloud dependencies.
- Jul 06, 2026
Zuckerberg Admits Meta's AI Agents Lag While Wang Claims 'Watermelon' Caught GPT-5.5
Meta's Zuckerberg admitted its AI agents stalled while AI chief Wang claimed the unreleased 'Watermelon' model caught GPT-5.5 — with no benchmarks to prove it.
- Jul 06, 2026
Zuckerberg's AI Agent Slowdown: What Builders Should Do Now
Meta's AI agent delays reveal broader industry challenges, prompting builders to focus on narrow, reliable implementations over autonomous promises.
- Jul 05, 2026
OpenAI's first hardware is a macro pad, not a phone — and I'm weirdly thrilled
OpenAI's first hardware isn't the Jony Ive AI device — it's the Codex Micro, a developer macro pad co-built with Work Louder, launching July 15.
- Jul 03, 2026
Claude-real-video: What It Means for Builders When Any LLM Can Watch a Video
How Claude-real-video's native temporal understanding changes the economics and reliability of video AI pipelines.
- Jul 02, 2026
Claude Sonnet 5: Why Builders Should Care About Anthropic's New Agentic Model
Analysis of Claude Sonnet 5's agentic capabilities and its reported temporary pricing, with actionable advice for AI builders evaluating mid-tier models.
- Jun 30, 2026
Qwen 3.6 27B: The New Sweet Spot for Local AI Development?
Why Qwen 3.6 27B's balance of performance and practicality makes it a game-changer for local AI development.
- Jun 29, 2026
When AI Second Opinions Go Medical: What Builders Should Know About Claude Code and MRI Analysis
How Claude Code's unexpected medical imaging capabilities reveal both the promise and perils of generalist AI in specialized domains.
- Jun 28, 2026
GPT-5.6 got delayed for a US security review — and honestly, I'm relieved
OpenAI delayed GPT-5.6 into July after a US security review and staggered rollout request — and why that cautious move is reassuring, not worrying.
- Jun 28, 2026
DSpark: How Speculative Decoding Could Cut Your LLM Costs Without Sacrificing Quality
How DSpark's speculative decoding approach could reduce LLM costs without quality loss, and what builders should do next.
- Jun 27, 2026
The GPT-5.6 Access Debate: Why Builders Should Care Less Than You Think
Why builders should focus less on GPT-5.6 access debates and more on practical system design.
- Jun 26, 2026
OpenAI just built its own chip, Jalapeño — here's why that quietly matters
OpenAI's first custom chip, Jalapeño, built with Broadcom, is less about silicon and more about who controls AI's future.
- Jun 26, 2026
AI Agent Marketplaces Seek Paid Testers: What Builders Should Know
Analysis of the growing trend of AI agent marketplaces recruiting paid testers and what it means for practical implementation.
- Jun 25, 2026
Anthropic Alleges Alibaba Extracted Claude AI Capabilities: What Builders Should Know
Anthropic's allegation against Alibaba exposes the risks of third-party AI dependencies and how builders can protect their products.
- Jun 25, 2026
OpenAI's Custom Chip: What Builders Need to Know
OpenAI's new custom AI chip could lower costs and improve reliability for builders, but the real impact depends on execution.
- Jun 24, 2026
AI Tool Pricing: Where the Money Leaks and How to Plug Them
A no-nonsense guide to AI tool pricing models and the hidden costs that inflate budgets.
- Jun 19, 2026
Why AI Agents Fail in Production: The Silent Killers and How to Fix Them
Practical guide to the unglamorous reasons AI agents fail in production and how to harden them against real-world conditions.
- Jun 18, 2026
When to Build a Multi-Agent System (and When to Avoid It)
Practical criteria for choosing between single and multi-agent architectures, with clear dos and don'ts.
- Jun 16, 2026
The AI Agent Production Reliability Checklist: Failure Modes and How to Catch Them
A field checklist for shipping reliable AI agents: the five failure modes that break production, and the observability that catches them before users do.
- Jun 16, 2026
Claude Agent SDK vs LangGraph: Which Agent Stack to Pick (and When You Need MCP)
A use-case-by-use-case verdict on Claude Agent SDK versus LangGraph, plus the honest answer on when MCP and multi-agent actually earn their keep.
- Jun 16, 2026
How Much Does It Cost to Run an AI Agent? A Per-Run Breakdown
The honest answer to AI agent costs: roughly $200 to $8,000 a month, but the real number hides in cost per run, not the model price.
- Jun 16, 2026
AI Coding Assistants Are Making Developers Worse at Reading Code
The rise of AI coding assistants is eroding developers' ability to read and understand existing codebases, creating a silent crisis in software maintenance.
- Jun 16, 2026
AI Coding Tools Are Breaking Your Debugging Workflow
AI coding tools are creating a debugging skills gap by providing fixes without explanations, leaving developers dependent but uninformed.
- Jun 14, 2026
AI Tool Stacks: The Real Monthly Cost and Where It Leaks
AI tool stacks cost way more than advertised, often leaking thousands monthly through inefficient usage and redundant tools: here's how to fix it.
- Jun 13, 2026
Kickbacks.ai and the Trust Problem: When the Ad Metric Can't Be Verified
Kickbacks.ai pays developers for ad impressions in their AI spinner. The hard question nobody's asking during the hype: how does it know an impression was real?
- Jun 12, 2026
How AI Is Used to Research Stock Market Opportunities
A practical look at how investors use AI to research stocks: screening, document synthesis, and signal generation, plus where human judgment still decides.
- Jun 12, 2026
The SpaceX IPO and the AI Opportunity: What the Listing Actually Signals
How the SpaceX IPO connects to AI: the satellite-data, compute, and infrastructure opportunities a public space company opens up for investors and builders.
- Jun 12, 2026
Kickbacks.ai Puts Ads in Your AI Spinner: The Hype, the Product, and How to Try It
What Kickbacks.ai does, why developers are arguing about it, and a step-by-step guide to installing the VS Code extension and earning from it.
- Jun 12, 2026
Boardroom (facetheboard.ai): An AI Panel That Won't Flatter Your Startup Idea
A look at facetheboard.ai's Boardroom, a 15-minute AI panel that interrogates your startup idea and returns a scored pass or fail.
- Jun 12, 2026
The Hidden Costs of Over-Reliance on LLMs in SaaS Workflows
Over-reliance on LLMs in SaaS tools creates performance bottlenecks that undermine user experience.
- Jun 11, 2026
The Hidden Costs of AI Coding Tools in 2026
Exploring the hidden productivity costs and quality impacts of AI coding tools in 2026.
- Jun 10, 2026
The Hidden Costs of AI Coding Tools: When Efficiency Comes at a Price
AI coding assistants like GitHub Copilot, Amazon CodeWhisperer, and Tabnine promise to revolutionize software development. They claim to boost productivity
- Jun 09, 2026
AI Coding Tools Are Getting Good Enough to Replace Junior Developers
The latest generation of AI coding assistants has crossed a threshold. They're no longer just autocomplete on steroids. Tools like GitHub Copilot, Claude C
- Jun 08, 2026
AI Agents Keep Failing in Production — Fix the Workflow, Not the Model
AI agents that dazzle in demos break in production. The cause is almost never the model — it's the workflow and the system around it.
- Jun 07, 2026
AI Coding Tools in 2026: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
### The Good: Unparalleled Productivity Boost Let's start with the good news—AI coding tools in 2026 have fundamentally transformed how developers work. To