Guides

The guides

Practical, plain-language guides to the problems our clients bring us: running AI on infrastructure you control, putting AI agents to work safely, protecting communications, reading real estate and housing markets, siting energy-hungry projects, and managing spend and currency risk. Each one is written by the team that builds the platform behind it.

Private AI and agents

• lualdi.ai · 9 min readPrivate LLM: how to run AI on your own servers

  What a private LLM is, why organizations run AI on their own servers, what it takes in hardware, security and cost, and how to roll it out without surprises.

• GRIZZLY · 7 min readAI agents for enterprise: what they do and how to deploy them safely

  What enterprise AI agents are, where they pay off, the risks that come with letting software act, and the controls that keep your team in charge of every decision.

• lualdi.ai · 6 min readAir-gapped AI: running AI with no internet connection

  How air-gapped AI works, who needs it, what changes when the servers can never connect, and a checklist for running language models fully offline.

• NOLAN · 5 min readOffline internet: keeping the web's knowledge when the network goes down

  How organizations keep the web's knowledge at hand with no connection: on ships, at forward bases, in secure rooms and through outages, and what it takes to do it well.

• AI Integration · 7 min readHow to integrate AI into existing systems

  A practical guide to AI integration: what your systems can absorb, how work moves between model and estate, and the order of changes that keeps production up.

• Custom Software · 7 min readBuild or buy: when custom AI software is worth it

  Build vs buy AI: when off-the-shelf tools are enough, when custom AI development pays, how to judge a custom system, and what you should own at the end.

Security and private communication

• PHANTOM · 5 min readQuantum-safe encryption, explained for business

  Why quantum computers threaten today's encryption, what harvest now, decrypt later means for your communications, and how to protect what must stay private for years.

• PHANTOM · 7 min readMessaging without a phone number: how anonymous messaging works

  How a messaging app without a phone number works, why your number gives you away, the trade-offs of anonymity, and what to look for in a private messenger.

Real estate and housing

• CITIZEN · 7 min readHow to analyze a housing market, ZIP code by ZIP code

  A step-by-step method for reading a housing market at ZIP code level: price trend, rent and yield, affordability, migration and supply, with real examples from CITIZEN.

• REALIST · 7 min readHow to underwrite a commercial real estate deal

  Commercial real estate underwriting step by step: rent roll, NOI, cap rate, financing, DSCR, returns and stress tests, with plain formulas and a worked example.

• REALIST · 7 min readCap rates explained, and how to stress test them

  What a cap rate is and how to calculate it, what makes a good cap rate for each asset and buyer, and how to stress test the exit cap rate before you buy.

• CITIZEN · 7 min readRental yield: how to calculate it and where it is highest

  How to calculate gross and net rental yield, what a good yield looks like across 8,421 US ZIP codes, and which large metros have the highest and lowest yields.

• POLYGON · 7 min readHow to track a construction pipeline before the permits

  Construction pipeline data starts before the permit. How to find upcoming development projects in land records, zoning agendas and on the ground itself.

Geospatial, energy and airspace

• FABRIC · 7 min readData center site selection: power, land and water

  Data center site selection now starts with power: how to judge grid capacity, interconnection, land, zoning, water and fiber, and screen from region to parcel.

• MITHRIL · 7 min readGeospatial intelligence for business

  What geospatial intelligence means for business: the satellite sensors behind it, the questions it answers, why provenance matters, and how to get started.

• MITHRIL · 7 min readSatellite data for investors: uses, limits and how to test it

  Satellite data for investing, explained: what imagery can measure, how to build a time series, how to test it against reported figures, and where it misleads.

• SKYWAY · 7 min readLive aircraft and satellite tracking for analysts

  How aircraft tracking and satellite tracking work, why some aircraft go dark, how satellite passes are predicted, and how analysts can use both responsibly.

Finance and operations

• OUTLAY · 7 min readSpend analysis: finding savings in a year of invoices

  How to do a spend analysis: gather a year of invoices, clean and classify suppliers, find the five places savings hide and size them for a board-ready case.

• FX DESK · 7 min readEUR/USD hedging for corporate treasury

  EUR/USD hedging for corporate treasury: how to size an exposure, choose between forwards, swaps, options and collars, set a hedge ratio and write the policy.

• SIGMA · 7 min readMarket regime detection: knowing when the rules have changed

  Market regime detection explained: what a regime is, why models fail when it changes, the main detection methods, and how a regime shift should alter decisions.