https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/insights Practical, hype-free articles on AI agents, model economics, Google Cloud, DuckDB and shadow AI for UK businesses. en-gb Mon, 14 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/images/insights-og.png https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/insights https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/insights/fruit-fly-connectome-small-ai https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/insights/fruit-fly-connectome-small-ai Mon, 14 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT AI Architecture A fly dodges your newspaper with 166,700 neurons, now fully mapped. We rebuilt its escape reflex in the page, tried to break it, and turned the results into a five-question AI claim check. https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/insights/desert-ant-tiny-models-smb https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/insights/desert-ant-tiny-models-smb Mon, 14 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT AI Architecture Desert Ant's AI models run on a phone, laptop or browser tab from 2 MB, free to 100,000 devices. Six SMB jobs they fit, costs against cloud APIs, the limits, and a live demo. https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/insights/shadow-ai-uk-businesses https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/insights/shadow-ai-uk-businesses Wed, 02 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT Governance & Risk 71% of UK staff have used unapproved AI at work and 96% of executives think they can see it. What the ICO, NCSC and EU AI Act expect, and a four-week audit that works. https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/insights/duckdb-ai-agents-bi https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/insights/duckdb-ai-agents-bi Tue, 01 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT Data & BI AWS bought the company behind DuckDB for the 90% of queries that fit in a terabyte. Why agents and DuckDB fit together, where the limits are, and a live engine you can query in the page. https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/insights/omarchy-agent-first-os https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/insights/omarchy-agent-first-os Mon, 31 Aug 2026 09:00:00 GMT AI Agents DHH's Arch-based Linux has $10m of backing and 100,000 downloads a week. The three design decisions that set it apart, and what its security fixes teach about auto-approving agents. https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/insights/google-cloud-consultancy-guide https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/insights/google-cloud-consultancy-guide Tue, 25 Aug 2026 09:00:00 GMT Cloud Google Cloud grew 82% last quarter and renamed half its products in April. The four stages of a real engagement, the UK cost traps, and seven questions to ask before you sign. https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/insights/right-model-for-the-job https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/insights/right-model-for-the-job Fri, 07 Aug 2026 09:00:00 GMT AI Architecture Most AI budgets pay frontier prices for tasks a small model handles as well. The pricing maths behind model routing, and a small model you can run in your browser. https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/insights/buzz-agent-workspace https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/insights/buzz-agent-workspace Mon, 03 Aug 2026 09:00:00 GMT AI Agents Block's open-source workspace gives AI agents their own identity and permissions. How Buzz compares to Slack, OpenClaw and Hermes Agent, and how to pilot it without betting the business. https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/insights/okf-vs-rag https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/insights/okf-vs-rag Mon, 03 Aug 2026 09:00:00 GMT AI Architecture Google's Open Knowledge Format asks whether your AI needs a vector database or a well-kept wiki. Where OKF beats RAG, where RAG still wins, and the hybrid we recommend. https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/insights/autoresearch-openclaw https://cloudfirstconsulting.com/insights/autoresearch-openclaw Sun, 12 Apr 2026 09:00:00 GMT AI Agents How enterprises combine the AutoResearch paradigm with the open-source OpenClaw agent framework to run model training without a researcher in the loop.