The Compression.

The Compression — A Field Guide to the AI Era for Business Owners :root { --ink: #111111; --paper: #fdfdfa; --muted: #6b6b6b; --line: #1a1a1a; --accent: #c8221d; } * { box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0; padding: 0; } html { scroll-behavior: smooth; } body { background: var(--paper); color: var(--ink); font-family: 'Crimson Pro', Georgia, serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.7; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; } .container { max-width: 720px; margin: 0 auto; padding: 80px 24px 120px; } / === Typography === / .kicker { font-family: 'Inter', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 500; letter-spacing: 0.18em; text-transform: uppercase; color: var(--muted); margin-bottom: 24px; } h1 { font-family: 'Crimson Pro', Georgia, serif; font-size: clamp(40px, 6vw, 64px); font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.05; letter-spacing: -0.02em; margin-bottom: 24px; } h1 em { font-style: italic; color: var(--accent); } .deck { font-size: 22px; line-height: 1.5; color: var(--muted); 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padding: 32px 0; border-top: 1px solid var(--ink); border-bottom: 1px solid var(--ink); color: var(--ink); } / === Figure / animation containers === / figure { margin: 56px -40px; text-align: center; } figcaption { font-family: 'Caveat', cursive; font-size: 20px; color: var(--muted); margin-top: 12px; } .svg-wrap { width: 100%; max-width: 640px; margin: 0 auto; display: block; } / === SVG drawing styles === / svg .draw { fill: none; stroke: var(--ink); stroke-width: 1.6; stroke-linecap: round; stroke-linejoin: round; } svg .draw-thick { stroke-width: 2.2; } svg .draw-thin { stroke-width: 1; } svg .accent { stroke: var(--accent); } svg .label { font-family: 'Caveat', cursive; font-size: 22px; fill: var(--ink); } svg .label-sm { font-family: 'Caveat', cursive; font-size: 16px; fill: var(--muted); } svg .label-mono { font-family: 'Inter', sans-serif; font-size: 11px; fill: var(--muted); letter-spacing: 0.12em; text-transform: uppercase; } / === Animations === / @keyframes drawStroke { to { stroke-dashoffset: 0; } } @keyframes fadeIn { from { opacity: 0; transform: translateY(8px); } to { opacity: 1; transform: translateY(0); } } @keyframes pulse { 0%, 100% { opacity: 0.4; } 50% { opacity: 1; } } / Compression loop animation / .loop-circle { stroke-dasharray: 1000; stroke-dashoffset: 1000; animation: drawStroke 3s ease-out forwards; } .loop-shrink { transform-origin: center; animation: shrinkPulse 6s ease-in-out infinite; animation-delay: 3s; } @keyframes shrinkPulse { 0% { transform: scale(1); } 25% { transform: scale(0.85); } 50% { transform: scale(0.65); } 75% { transform: scale(0.45); } 100% { transform: scale(1); } } .loop-label { animation: fadeIn 0.6s ease-out backwards; } / Reveal-on-scroll for figures / figure[data-reveal] .draw { stroke-dasharray: 2000; stroke-dashoffset: 2000; } figure[data-reveal].in-view .draw { animation: drawStroke 2.4s ease-out forwards; } figure[data-reveal] text { opacity: 0; } figure[data-reveal].in-view text { animation: fadeIn 0.8s ease-out forwards; animation-delay: 1.2s; } / === Three doors === / .door-group { display: flex; justify-content: space-around; } / === Section dividers === / .divider { text-align: center; margin: 56px 0; color: var(--muted); font-family: 'Caveat', cursive; font-size: 24px; letter-spacing: 0.4em; } / === Recommendation cards === / .recs { margin: 32px 0; padding: 32px; border: 1px solid var(--ink); background: transparent; position: relative; } .recs::before { content: ''; position: absolute; top: -1px; left: -1px; right: -1px; bottom: -1px; border: 1px solid var(--ink); transform: translate(6px, 6px); z-index: -1; pointer-events: none; } .recs ol { list-style: none; counter-reset: rec; } .recs ol li { counter-increment: rec; padding: 16px 0 16px 56px; position: relative; border-bottom: 1px dashed #d4d2cb; font-size: 19px; } .recs ol li:last-child { border-bottom: none; } .recs ol li::before { content: counter(rec, decimal-leading-zero); position: absolute; left: 0; top: 14px; font-family: 'Caveat', cursive; font-size: 32px; color: var(--accent); font-weight: 700; } / === Objection handling === / .obj { margin: 24px 0; padding-left: 24px; border-left: 3px solid var(--ink); } .obj-q { font-style: italic; color: var(--muted); font-size: 19px; } .obj-a { margin-top: 6px; font-weight: 500; } / === CTA === / .cta { margin-top: 80px; padding: 48px 32px; text-align: center; border-top: 2px solid var(--ink); border-bottom: 2px solid var(--ink); } .cta h2 { margin: 0 0 16px; font-size: 28px; } .cta p { font-size: 19px; max-width: 480px; margin: 0 auto; color: var(--muted); font-style: italic; } / === Signature === / .signature { margin-top: 56px; text-align: center; font-family: 'Caveat', cursive; font-size: 24px; color: var(--muted); } / === Mobile === / @media (max-width: 600px) { .container { padding: 48px 20px 80px; } body { font-size: 18px; } figure { margin: 40px -8px; } .pullquote { font-size: 22px; margin: 40px 0; } .recs { padding: 24px; } h3 { font-size: 28px; } } Field Notes · The AI Era · 2026 The Compression . A field guide for business owners — the e-commerce operator, the first-time founder, and the veteran who&rsquo;s been doing this for twenty years and still thinks the old playbook will hold. ~ 6 min read · For builders, operators &amp; veterans There is a window opening right now in business, and most owners are going to miss it. Not because they can&rsquo;t see it — but because they can&rsquo;t see what is actually happening . What is happening is not a tool revolution. Tools come and go. We&rsquo;ve seen websites, social media, mobile, cloud. Each one was loud, then it was normal. Owners who arrived late could still catch up. This is different. This isn&rsquo;t a tool. It&rsquo;s a force. And the force is compression . CUSTOMER DATA INSIGHT PRODUCT PRE&ndash;AI months → weeks → days → hours The loop every business runs on. AI doesn&rsquo;t change the loop. It compresses it. Every business — yours, mine, the one down the street — runs on the same loop. You meet a customer. You collect data, formal or informal. You turn that data into insight. The insight changes the product or the offer. The new offer meets a customer. Round and round. Pre-AI, that loop was measured in months . A retail chain ran a quarterly review. A product team shipped twice a year. A consultant heard feedback at the next dinner. With AI, that same loop is measured in days . Sometimes hours. The owners who realize this are not building bigger products. They are building tighter loops . &ldquo;The winners in this era are not the businesses with the best AI. They are the businesses with the tightest loops.&rdquo; Why this is not the internet in 1999 People keep comparing AI to the early web. The comparison is wrong, and it is dangerous, because it tells you that you have time. The web was a distribution shift. Whoever built a website got a website. There was no compounding penalty for being late by two years. AI is a feedback shift . The business that started tightening its loops in 2024 is now collecting better data than you, generating better insight than you, and shipping better offers than you. And the gap between you is not linear. It is exponential. TIME → CAPABILITY today old methods tight loops the gap Two businesses, same starting point, twelve months apart. This is why &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll get to it next year&rdquo; is the most expensive sentence in business right now. Next year, you won&rsquo;t catch up. You&rsquo;ll just be further behind. Three doors. Pick yours. I&rsquo;ve been thinking about how this lands depending on where you stand. There isn&rsquo;t one answer for everyone — there are three doors, and you&rsquo;re standing in front of one of them right now. The Veteran 10+ years in The Builder starting now The Operator selling online Each door has a different trap, and a different leverage point. Door 1 &mdash; The Veteran You&rsquo;ve been in business ten or twenty years. You know your market. Your customers trust you. Your instincts are sharp. Your trap is not ignorance. Your trap is your own success . Your processes were built for a slower world, and they still work — just barely. Each year they work a little less. You don&rsquo;t feel it because the decline is gentle. You don&rsquo;t need to learn AI. You need to identify the three slowest steps in your business — the steps where you wait, where customers wait, where decisions sit on someone&rsquo;s desk — and tighten them. AI is just the chisel. Door 2 &mdash; The Builder You&rsquo;re starting now. You have no legacy systems, no team to retrain, no twenty-year processes to defend. That&rsquo;s an enormous advantage. Your trap is the tool stack . You will spend six months collecting AI tools, watching tutorials, building automations — and zero months talking to customers. Tools without customers is hobby, not business. Pick one customer type. One problem they have. One loop. Tighten that loop. Then repeat. Door 3 &mdash; The E-commerce Operator You have traffic, products, and data. AI gives you a leverage moment most businesses dream of, because everything you sell can now be personalized at almost no cost. Your trap is broadcast at scale . You&rsquo;ll use AI to send the same generic message to more people, faster. That doesn&rsquo;t move the needle. The needle moves when broadcast becomes conversation. Pick one touchpoint — the product page, the abandoned cart email, the post-purchase message. Make it speak to that customer , not all customers. Then do the next one. · · · What to actually do this week Reading articles doesn&rsquo;t tighten loops. So before you close this tab, here is the smallest possible action that puts you on the right side of the divergence. Map one loop. Pick a single loop in your business — lead to sale, question to answer, order to delivery. Sketch the steps on one page. Find the slowest step. Where does time pile up? Where do customers wait? Where do you wait? Circle it. Apply AI only there. Not everywhere. Just there. Get that one step from days to hours, or from hours to minutes. Three steps. One loop. One week. That&rsquo;s the entire game. The three things you&rsquo;re probably telling yourself &ldquo;AI is overhyped. Half of this stuff doesn&rsquo;t work.&rdquo; Both can be true. The hype is loud and largely empty. The compounding underneath is silent and very real. Don&rsquo;t mistake one for the other. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t have time to learn this right now.&rdquo; You&rsquo;ll have less time in six months, because the cost of not knowing it will start showing up in your numbers. The cheapest moment to start was last year. The second cheapest is today. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s too technical for me.&rdquo; It was. Today, if you can write an email, you can use AI. The technical era is already over. What&rsquo;s left is a clarity test, not a coding test. One last thing The compression isn&rsquo;t slowing down. It&rsquo;s accelerating. The window doesn&rsquo;t close in five years. It closes in months, quietly, as your competitors&rsquo; loops keep tightening and yours stay where they were. The veteran who tightens loops will out-execute anyone who just &ldquo;has AI.&rdquo; The builder who picks a real wedge will out-run the tool-stackers. The operator who personalizes one touchpoint will eat the broadcasters alive. None of this requires being a technologist. It requires being honest about where your loop is slow. Pick one loop. Tighten it this week. Not next quarter. Not after the holidays. This week. The compression doesn&rsquo;t wait, and neither should you. — a field note from the compression era // Reveal-on-scroll for figures const figures = document.querySelectorAll('figure[data-reveal]'); const observer = new IntersectionObserver((entries) => { entries.forEach(entry => { if (entry.isIntersecting) { entry.target.classList.add('in-view'); observer.unobserve(entry.target); } }); }, { threshold: 0.3 }); figures.forEach(fig => observer.observe(fig));