The AI Playbook by Keith Eddleman.

A newsletter about using AI at work: what your organization should hand off to AI, simplify, or stop doing, worked out inside a company that has to run on the answer.

Keith Eddleman is CTO of Q1Media (since 2012) and has been building software for 30 years. Read his Forward-Deployed CTO thesis.

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From the newsletter

The latest issue, then the ones before it. Each issue is one idea you can use at work that week.

Latest issue, No. 29  /  October 8, 2026

AI isn't coming for your job

It's coming for your tasks. If you run a team, here's the list, and the prompt for every one. Plus what's new on the rebuilt AI Playbook: playbooks, skills, RE+SHAPE and 72 free prompts.

Read issue 29
  1. No. 28  /  October 2, 2026Don't just do 'old work' faster (details inside)Most AI advice starts with the technology. A year of asking a different question turned into a framework, and it is now a conversation you can have on the site.
  2. No. 27  /  September 21, 2026700 People Fired! Everyone drew the wrong lesson from Klarna. The AI worked. What broke was the glue between systems — and we answered a context-switching crisis by shipping the 1,201st tab.
  3. No. 26  /  September 8, 2026Is Your Company Behind in the AI Race?65% of CEOs fear they're underinvesting in AI and 80% think their job depends on it. It may all be a LIE!
  4. No. 25  /  August 24, 2026The 95% Problem: Your AI Is Over-EngineeredMIT says 95% of GenAI pilots deliver zero P&L impact. The culprit isn't the models — it's over-engineering. AI should simplify the intelligence layer and be trusted to distill, not generate more things to read.

Browse every issue

RE+SHAPE, in plain English

RE+SHAPE is a seven-step way to take one piece of recurring work and decide whether AI should touch it at all, and if it should, exactly how. It is for the person who owns the work and needs an answer more specific than “use more AI.” Leaving the work alone is a valid answer.

Example: the weekly status reportAn ordinary piece of work, run through all seven steps. Illustrative, not a client case.
  1. RevealEvery Friday each team lead writes a status report, and you skim most of it for the two lines that matter.
  2. ExamineWorth changing, carefully. Writing it makes leads think about their week, and it is the only place risks get written down.
  3. SpecifyBy Monday morning you know what changed, what is at risk, and what needs your decision.
  4. HuntDelete retyping what the tracker already says. Reduce the narrative. Preserve each lead’s own read on risk. Elevate decisions that need you.
  5. AugmentAI drafts the report from the tracker. The lead adds two sentences of judgment instead of a page of status.
  6. Put AI to WorkGive it a job: a weekly delivery brief, from named sources, with examples of what counts as a risk and a one-screen definition of done.
  7. ExecuteIt runs Friday afternoon on its own, nudges a lead who has not updated, and only interrupts you when a decision is waiting.

Where this one lands: augment. The report still exists; nobody retypes it. Every run ends in one of five answers (leave it alone, eliminate / redesign, augment, delegate, automate), and none ranks above another.

What a session looks like. Illustrative; yours follows your work.

Reveal/Examine/Specify/Hunt/Augment/Put AI to Work/Execute

RE+SHAPE: Don't bring me an AI use case. Bring me your work.

You: Our weekly status report. Every lead spends Friday afternoon on it and I skim it for the two lines that matter.

RE+SHAPE: Before we change it: who else reads it, and what would break if it stopped tomorrow?

You: Only me, honestly. But it’s where people admit something is slipping.

The reframe

I don't think the report is the problem. It's doing two jobs: moving status to you, and giving leads a safe place to raise risk. Only the first one needs a person typing.

You leave with a plan you can copy or download:

  • RE_SHAPE_PLAN.md
  • OUTCOME.md
  • WORKFLOW_AUDIT.md
  • AUGMENTED_WORKFLOW.md
Try it on your own workLimited beta. Bring one piece of real work.Read the frameworkAll 30 plays

On social

Short videos from the Ten Plays series, each one quick enough to watch between meetings. Keith also posts on LinkedIn and X.

LinkedInin/eddlemanX@eddlemanYouTube@textmyagent

Every Short has a written version with the prompts: read the Ten Plays.

The Lab

Where Keith tests the ideas he writes about. Some become products, some become evidence.

Open The Lab

Keith Eddleman, CTO of Q1Media

Written from two altitudes

A Forward-Deployed CTO operates at two altitudes: in the executive room, where priorities and consequences are understood, and in the implementation layer, where assumptions meet real data and working software. The value comes from moving continuously between the two.

  • CTO of Q1Media since 2012, where he led the creation of an end-to-end Digital Media Operating System.
  • More than $300 million in media spend has flowed through that system.
  • Building software for 30 years.
Read the thesisFollow Keith on LinkedIn

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