Archive

Every issue of The Searchlight, in reverse chronological order.

Issue #8

Enterprise AI went metered. The public stopped pretending.

Anthropic moved its largest customers to per-token billing this week, just as Stanford's 2026 AI Index documented the widest confidence gap yet between AI experts and ordinary Americans.

April 17, 2026
Issue #7

The Gates Close on Open-Source AI

Meta launched a proprietary model this week. Every company that built on Llama needs a new plan.

April 10, 2026
Issue #6

Vendor policy just became the new model benchmark.

A federal court ruled AI safety restrictions are protected speech. With frontier models converging on performance, the procurement decision just shifted from capability to vendor risk posture.

April 3, 2026
Issue #5

Sora dies. The compute line is drawn.

OpenAI's Sora collapse, MCP's infrastructure milestone, and NVIDIA's agent push reveal which AI bets survive contact with real economics.

March 27, 2026
Issue #4

Restructure, License, Comply: The Three Moves Defining Q1

Adecco locks in unlimited agentic AI. Atlassian cuts 1,600 to fund its pivot. The pricing floor for enterprise AI is being set now.

March 13, 2026
Issue #3

The Agent Layer Is Splitting Along Trust Lines

The agent platform layer is fragmenting along trust lines. Here's the operator playbook for navigating what's next.

March 6, 2026
Issue #2

The Build-or-Buy Window Is Closing

Retool data says 35% of teams replaced SaaS with custom builds. Here's the decision rubric operators need this week.

February 27, 2026
Issue #1

The SaaS pricing model just broke. Here's what replaces it.

Enterprise AI agents just broke the SaaS pricing model. This week's field memo on what to build, buy, and avoid.

February 20, 2026