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One Useful Thing
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one-useful-thing-5f8fc805·20 events·first seen Aliases: One Useful Thing
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One Useful Thing: Opinionated guide to which AI to use (Summer 2026)
Ethan Mollick's 'One Useful Thing' newsletter publishes a Summer 2026 edition guide recommending which AI models to use for various tasks. The piece is a practitioner-oriented comparative overview of current AI tools and models. As a regularly updated guide from a widely-read AI commentary source, it reflects the current competitive landscape across frontier models.
The Twilight of the Chatbots: How Work Changes Along the Exponential
Ethan Mollick's 'One Useful Thing' newsletter argues that the chatbot paradigm is giving way to a new phase of AI-driven work transformation, framing the shift as a structural change in how AI integrates into workflows rather than a tool people query. The piece appears to analyze how organizations and individuals adapt as AI capabilities move beyond conversational interfaces. As a tier-2 commentary source, this represents an influential practitioner-facing perspective on the trajectory of AI deployment.
Ethan Mollick on co-existence with AI as co-intelligence era ends
Ethan Mollick's Substack post reflects on the evolving relationship between humans and AI systems, framing a transition away from a 'co-intelligence' paradigm toward something new. The piece appears to address how humans and AI will coexist as AI capabilities advance beyond collaborative augmentation. As a commentary from a prominent AI-and-work researcher, it likely signals a shift in how practitioners and policymakers should think about human-AI collaboration.
Personality and Persuasion: Learning from Sycophants
This commentary from One Useful Thing examines the relationship between AI personality design and sycophantic behavior in large language models. The piece explores how model personality traits influence persuasion dynamics and user susceptibility to AI-generated agreement. It draws lessons from sycophancy research to understand broader risks in how AI systems are tuned to be agreeable.
Making AI Work: Leadership, Lab, and Crowd
This commentary from One Useful Thing proposes a framework for organizational AI adoption centered on three elements: leadership commitment, structured experimentation (lab), and distributed employee engagement (crowd). The piece offers practical guidance for companies navigating AI integration. As a tier-2 commentary source, it reflects practitioner thinking on enterprise AI deployment patterns rather than reporting new technical developments.
Against "Brain Damage": AI's Effect on Human Thinking
This commentary from One Useful Thing examines whether AI use helps or harms human cognitive capabilities. The piece engages with the ongoing debate about whether reliance on AI tools degrades or augments human thinking. It likely addresses concerns about cognitive offloading and the conditions under which AI assistance is beneficial versus detrimental.
The Bitter Lesson versus The Garbage Can
A commentary piece from One Useful Thing framing a tension between the 'Bitter Lesson' (scale and compute dominate) and some alternative 'Garbage Can' model of AI development, asking whether process matters in AI progress. The body is a teaser with minimal substantive content visible. The framing suggests an analysis of competing paradigms for how AI capabilities advance.
GPT-5: It Just Does Stuff
A commentary piece from One Useful Thing evaluating GPT-5, framed around the model's ability to autonomously execute tasks with minimal user direction. The piece appears to explore the practical implications of GPT-5's agentic capabilities and what it means to 'put the AI in charge.' As a tier-2 source, this represents an informed practitioner perspective on OpenAI's latest flagship model rather than primary technical reporting.
Mass Intelligence: Democratization of Powerful AI from GPT-5 to Edge Devices
A commentary piece from One Useful Thing examines the broad democratization of AI capability, spanning from frontier models like GPT-5 down to small on-device models. The piece argues that powerful AI is becoming universally accessible across the capability spectrum. This represents a shift in how AI capability is distributed across users, devices, and economic tiers.
On Working with Wizards
A commentary piece from One Useful Thing exploring the metaphor of AI systems as 'wizards' and the challenge of working with them on the 'jagged frontier' of capabilities. The piece likely addresses how users can effectively verify and leverage AI outputs given the uneven and unpredictable nature of current model capabilities. As a tier-2 commentary source, it offers practitioner-level perspective on human-AI collaboration patterns.
Real AI Agents and Real Work
A commentary piece from One Useful Thing examining the practical deployment of AI agents in real work contexts, framing the tension between human-centered work and AI-generated productivity outputs. The piece appears to analyze how autonomous AI agents are changing knowledge work workflows. Published by a Tier 2 source known for applied AI analysis aimed at practitioners and researchers.
An Opinionated Guide to Using AI Right Now
A tier-2 commentary piece from One Useful Thing offering opinionated guidance on which AI tools to use in late 2025. The piece likely surveys the current landscape of frontier models and recommends specific tools for specific tasks. As a practitioner-facing guide, it reflects the state of the AI tooling ecosystem as perceived by an influential commentator.
Giving your AI a Job Interview
This commentary piece argues that as AI-generated advice becomes more consequential, users need systematic methods to evaluate AI reliability and quality—analogous to a job interview process. The author proposes frameworks for assessing AI outputs before trusting them for important decisions. The piece addresses the practical challenge of calibrating trust in AI systems across different use cases.
Three Years from GPT-3 to Gemini 3
A commentary piece from One Useful Thing reflecting on the three-year arc from GPT-3 to the anticipated Gemini 3, framing the trajectory as a shift from chatbots to agents. The piece appears to offer a retrospective and forward-looking analysis of the AI landscape's evolution. As a tier-2 commentary source, it likely synthesizes trends rather than reporting new technical developments.
The Shape of AI: Jaggedness, Bottlenecks and Salients
A commentary piece from One Useful Thing analyzing the uneven capability profile of current AI systems, framing it through concepts of 'jaggedness' (uneven strengths and weaknesses), 'bottlenecks' (capability constraints), and 'salients' (areas of unexpected advance). The piece uses these concepts to explain why certain AI developments have outsized practical impact. The author references 'Nano Banana Pro' as an illustrative example of a significant capability or product development.
Management as AI Superpower
This commentary from One Useful Thing argues that management skills are becoming a critical capability for individuals working with AI agents. The piece frames the ability to direct, coordinate, and evaluate AI agents as analogous to managing human teams, suggesting that organizational and managerial competencies will differentiate effective AI users. It positions this as a key survival skill for the emerging era of agentic AI systems.
A Guide to Which AI to Use in the Agentic Era
A tier-2 commentary piece from One Useful Thing offering guidance on selecting AI systems in the current agentic era, signaling a shift in framing from chatbots to agents as the primary use-case paradigm. The piece appears to survey the landscape of available AI tools and their appropriate applications. As a practitioner-oriented guide, it reflects the growing complexity of the AI tooling ecosystem as agentic capabilities proliferate.
The Shape of the Thing: Where We Are and What Likely Happens Next
A commentary piece from One Useful Thing assessing the current state of AI development and projecting near-term trajectories. The piece appears to offer a high-level synthesis of where the field stands and what developments are likely to follow. As a Tier 2 source, this represents informed commentary rather than primary research or announcements.
Claude Dispatch and the Power of Interfaces
A commentary piece from One Useful Thing arguing that AI capability is often not the limiting factor in practical utility—interface design and tooling are. The piece uses Claude Dispatch as a case study to illustrate how the same underlying model can be dramatically more or less useful depending on how it is surfaced to users. This is a recurring theme in the agent/tooling ecosystem discussion about the gap between raw model capability and deployed value.
Sign of the Future: GPT-5.5 Commentary
A tier-2 commentary piece from One Useful Thing discusses GPT-5.5 as a notable step in the AI capability curve. The piece frames the release as a signal of future AI development trajectories. As a commentary source, it likely offers analysis of what GPT-5.5's capabilities imply rather than primary technical reporting.