What surfaces on the second read of Anthropic's Advisor Tool. This isn't new architecture — it's a temporary fix shaped by 2026 pricing. A pattern that disappears once Opus prices drop, and eleven other papers from the same period are quietly moving the same way. The anchor of the series.
How do you organize the sliced agents. Four structures, paired with one skeptical paper that argues 'LLM swarms aren't really swarms.' The conclusion lands where it usually does — structure choice gets dragged along by pricing. Part 2 of the series.
The five ways 2026 papers slice an agent, side by side. Two things stand out by the end: Role, Skill, and Judge are different names for the same concept, and the time-axis literature is nearly empty. Part 1 of the series.
What surfaces on the second read of Anthropic's Advisor Tool. This isn't new architecture — it's a temporary fix shaped by 2026 pricing. A pattern that disappears once Opus prices drop, and eleven other papers from the same period are quietly moving the same way. The anchor of the series.
How do you organize the sliced agents. Four structures, paired with one skeptical paper that argues 'LLM swarms aren't really swarms.' The conclusion lands where it usually does — structure choice gets dragged along by pricing. Part 2 of the series.
The five ways 2026 papers slice an agent, side by side. Two things stand out by the end: Role, Skill, and Judge are different names for the same concept, and the time-axis literature is nearly empty. Part 1 of the series.
Reading the 2026 AI Index left a recurring impression — this year's edition lands softer than last year's. This piece chases that impression. Side by side: the report's headline indicators, and the shifts that landed outside it during the eight weeks before publication.