Your partner for the big AI leap
Building solutions, advising AI transformation, clearing roadmaps. We’re software veterans who solve problems for some of the world’s best companies.
Let’s make something greatBuilt with lessons from these partners
What we do
Your roadmap, realized
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AI-accelerated building
AI can write code faster than any of us ever could. What it still can’t do is decide what’s worth building, why it matters, or how a team gets from an idea to something real. That was always the hard part. AI just made it more obvious.
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Strategy
We partner with you to assess everything that needs an upgrade, then we form a plan to clear your roadmap and take you into the future prepared to continue growing and evolving.
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Planning & architecture
We’ve built for every industry, at every scale, with every degree of complexity. Key to that is taking the time to deeply consider your needs and design thoughtful solutions before a line of code is written.
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Agentic
workflowsWe help you make smart use of AI in your company workflows, only where it can genuinely help you get more done faster.
Insurance
Helping an insurance giant save millions with an elegant, AI-assisted policy validation system
Health
Unlocking the full potential of hundreds of community health centers
Cohen’s 31% broken appointment rate is driving an $847K annual revenue loss. Action: deploy Jamaica’s reminder system to recover ~$635K.
Travel
A platform modernizing luxury travel operators
Publishing
A digital archive transformation for a legendary, decades-old journal
Climate
Making climate data accessible to researchers, policymakers, and the world
Government
Taking the headaches out of municipal scheduling for Bostonians
Code got easy. Building great software didn’t.
When you work with us, you get a durable partnership with some of the smartest product thinkers around. AI has turbocharged our ability to generate code, but you have to know what to build first. And our highly experienced engineers, designers, and specialists have built it all. With Aboard you get great advising and great software that will transform your business.
We’ve got opinions
What we share with clients, we share with the world, because in a confusing time, clear guidance matters. Every week, our co-founders—Paul Ford, one of the world’s top tech writers and thinkers, and Rich Ziade, who has led transformations for some of the biggest companies on the planet—explore how AI is changing software, business, and everything else through our podcast, newsletter, and live events, often with fascinating guests from tech, media, and culture. Start with the latest, or dig into the archives. We’ve been at this for a while.
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The link is the document!Introducing TinyLittleOffice.com
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Translating between politicians and tech with the Center for Shared AI Prosperity.Jason Goldman: from VC pitches to AI kill switches
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It’s important to hear all sides of the debate.An op-ed written by the world’s best models
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Paul Ford joined Please Advise host Manoush Zomorodi to talk about AI and the workplace: whether it threatens our jobs, and how to think about using it responsibly to be…Advice About AI at Work | Please Advise (opens in a new tab)
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Business Insider’s internet culture expert breaks down how AI is reshaping our social feeds.Katie Notopoulos: there are still LOLs on the internet
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Observations from recent meetups on Jev and AI’s role in investigative journalism.People are reclaiming the computer
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The link is the document!
Introducing TinyLittleOffice.com
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It’s important to hear all sides of the debate.
An op-ed written by the world’s best models
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Observations from recent meetups on Jev and AI’s role in investigative journalism.
People are reclaiming the computer
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Ironically, the AI-ification of everything makes this possible—and necessary.I keep accidentally building search engines
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A more legible, less terrifying explanation for what’s happening with AI right now—and what we can do about it.Humans are the only real agents
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How we got the full back catalog of Lapham’s Quarterly online.A brand-new archive for a historical treasure
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Translating between politicians and tech with the Center for Shared AI Prosperity.
Jason Goldman: from VC pitches to AI kill switches
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Business Insider’s internet culture expert breaks down how AI is reshaping our social feeds.
Katie Notopoulos: there are still LOLs on the internet
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LLMs are often far too powerful for the small tasks they’re asked to complete. Is the more-contained Jev the alternative?Is Jev the new shape of AI?
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Discussing observability in the AI era with the co-founder and CTO of Honeycomb.Charity Majors: embrace your computer’s chaos
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Tech execs are sounding alarms about the dangerously fast pace of LLM development. Will any regulators stop them?AI companies shouldn’t police themselves
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Problems with your boss? Why not fire up Claude and hit HR with a lengthy legalistic complaint?AI versus…talking to people?
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A conversation with Julia Stoyanovich and Paul FordOffice Hours: Who’s responsible for AI?
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A panel on how museums and cultural institutions are using AI, from visitor experiences to behind-the-scenes operationsOffice Hours: AI comes to the museum
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A conversation with Josh Hadro and Paul Ford on how to use AI to unlock library archivesOffice Hours: Databases for the people
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A panel on AI, craft, and the next era of product designOffice Hours: Design beyond the prompt
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A conversation with Josh Tyrangiel, Paul Ford, and Rich ZiadeOffice Hours: Can AI be good?
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A panel on how AI investment in healthcare has shifted and where it’s headedOffice Hours: How AI is shaping investor thinking in healthcare
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Paul Ford joined Please Advise host Manoush Zomorodi to talk about AI and the workplace: whether it threatens our jobs, and how to think about using it responsibly to be…
Advice About AI at Work | Please Advise (opens in a new tab)
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Just because A.I. is revolutionizing coding, doesn't mean it will automatically revolutionize our apps.A.I. Slopware Is Everywhere Now. Nobody Is Using It. (opens in a new tab)
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How freaked out should we be by the ‘Hugging Face Incident’? Paul Ford appears on Slate's TBD podcast, discussing some disturbing AI developments, and asking for deep breaths from everyone.A.I-pocalypse now? (opens in a new tab)
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Brandon Whichard speaks with Rich, Aboard's co-founder and CEO, about why enterprise AI projects fail without real discovery, why "agents" have been oversold as a headcount play, and why organizational…Your AI Project Doesn’t Need More Agents (with Rich Ziade) (opens in a new tab)
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We won’t get the A.I. regulation we deserve until we change how we think about the right to code.Code Is Free Speech. Seriously. (opens in a new tab)
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Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, sits down with Paul Ford to discuss how AI has changed software.How AI Is Changing Code – Paul Ford with Nicholas Thompson (opens in a new tab)
About us