A newsletter by Ken Yeung

The AI
Economy

A sharp, curated look at the stories that reveal how AI is rewriting business, work, technology, and culture.

Ken Yeung

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What you get

Built for people who work with AI, not just read about it.

Reported, not aggregated

Enterprise AI coverage from a journalist who covered the space before “generative AI” was a mainstream phrase. Sourced, contextual, with a point of view.

Platform strategy focus

Beyond the product announcements. Analysis of how AI is restructuring enterprise workflows, editorial operations, and the economics of content at scale.

Written for practitioners

Not for the hype-chasers. For the people who have to act on it.

Archive

Every issue.

All issues published to date. New issues arrive every week.

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  1. Issue

    Twilio’s Ola Is the Communication Layer That Tells AI Agents No

    As the AI industry builds agents with greater capabilities and freedom to do what they want, Twilio is choosing to build the layer that decides whether they should. On Thursday, the communications infrastructure platform unveiled Ola, a tool that lets people approve or block actions taken by their AI agents on their behalf. Created by […]
  2. Issue

    Ai2 Brings $152M Federally Backed AI Computing Cluster Online

    The Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) said Thursday that its federally backed AI computing cluster is now online, marking the first milestone of a $152 million program to build open AI models for scientific research. The project, called the Open Multimodal AI Infrastructure for Science (NSF OMAI), is backed by the U.S. National Science Foundation […]
  3. Issue

    AWS Gives AI Agents the Authority to Spend With AgentCore Payments

    Amazon Web Services (AWS) is building the infrastructure that lets AI agents transact on behalf of humans—with their consent, of course. At its Financial Services Symposium on Thursday, the company unveiled AgentCore Payments, a set of features within Amazon Bedrock that lets AI agents access and pay for the resources they use. Built with Coinbase […]
  4. Issue

    Atlassian Bets That Context-Rich Agents Beat Context-Blind Ones

    When Atlassian introduced Rovo AI in 2024, it wasn’t running solely on a foundation model. It was drawing on the Teamwork Graph, the company’s structured map of how people, teams, projects, and decisions connect across an organization, built over more than two decades of enterprise use. That context layer is what Atlassian said set Rovo […]
  5. Issue

    Twilio Takes On ‘Agent Amnesia’ So Customers Never Have to Repeat Themselves Again

    How many times have you called customer service, explained your problem, got transferred, and had to start all over again? With AI agents in the mix, that experience doesn’t get better—it multiplies. Twilio calls it the “conversation gap”: the disconnect between fragmented systems that leaves AI agents without the context they need to pick up […]
  6. Issue

    Adobe’s Productivity Agent Is Changing What a PDF Can Be

    Adobe invented the PDF. For decades, it’s defined how the world shares its most important information. Now, the company wants to redefine what happens once that document lands on the other end. On Wednesday, it’s launching an AI-powered productivity agent and new publishing capabilities in PDF Spaces that turn static files into interactive experiences. “We’re […]
  7. Issue

    ServiceNow Expands AI Control Tower With Enforcement Capabilities Across the Enterprise

    Once meant to serve as a traffic manager for AI agents, ServiceNow’s AI Control Tower is evolving into what the company calls an end-to-end AI command center. A year after its launch, ServiceNow is making the case that dismissing it as an add-on is a mistake—it’s now become critical to how enterprises manage AI at […]
  8. Issue

    ServiceNow to Enterprises: Stop Asking AI for Advice. Start Letting It Work.

    The average sales rep spends just 10 hours a week actually talking to customers, according to Ipsos research. Security teams watch vulnerability backlogs grow faster than they can triage them. HR desks generate more than 40 million cases a year—most of it routine, repeatable, and stubbornly manual. The problem isn’t talent. It’s that the work […]
  9. Issue

    ServiceNow Otto Is the Front Door to an AI Platform Built to Finish the Work

    Enterprises have spent the past few years deploying AI across their organizations, only to find it stops short of actually finishing the job. Employees still navigate between applications, chase down approvals, and route their own requests. This is because most AI tools are built inside a single application, unable to cross the boundaries of departments […]
  10. Issue

    Ai2’s MolmoAct 2 Is the Open Robot Model Built for the Real World

    In the race to build robots that can work reliably in the physical world, proprietary models have held a clear advantage. However, that edge is narrowing. The Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) on Thursday released its next-generation MolmoAct model, which outperforms popular rival, Physical Intelligence’s (PI) π0.5, across simulations, zero-shot real-world tasks, and third-party evaluations. […]

Peer review

What the AIs say.*

We asked the leading AI tools to weigh in on The AI Economy. Their ratings speak for themselves. (Results may vary depending on training data and general disposition toward newsletters.)

Claude — Anthropic

★★★★★

5.0

out of 5

“[Its] strength lies in its ability to cover both technical developments and business implications of AI, making it valuable for a wide audience ranging from tech enthusiasts to business executives.”

ChatGPT — OpenAI

★★★★★

5.0

out of 5

“Expertly combines in-depth interviews and industry analysis, making it a must-read for AI enthusiasts and professionals.”

Gemini — Google

★★★★★

5.0

out of 5

“Provides valuable insights and analysis, making it a great resource for anyone interested in AI.”

Copilot — Microsoft

★★★★★

5.0

out of 5

“A sharp, reporter‑caliber intelligence brief for the AI era—fast, authoritative, and genuinely ahead of the curve.”

* Disclaimer: My newsletter has not been actually endorsed by OpenAI, Google, or Anthropic. I solicited reviews from their respective gen AI services. Sounded cool though, huh?

Questions

Common questions.

  1. What is The AI Economy?

    A newsletter covering consumer and enterprise AI, platform strategy, and the companies reshaping how work gets done. Reported, not aggregated — written by a technology journalist who has covered the space since before generative AI was a mainstream phrase.

  2. How often does it publish?

    No fixed schedule—just coverage when something worth your attention happens. Plus, there's a Friday news roundup that's published exclusively on LinkedIn.

  3. Is it free?

    Yes. Every issue is free. Subscribe on Substack and it arrives in your inbox. No paywall, no premium tier. If that changes, subscribers will be notified well in advance.

  4. How is this different from other AI newsletters?

    Most AI newsletters cover product announcements and funding rounds. The AI Economy focuses on the downstream effects: how enterprise teams are actually deploying AI, where the editorial and operational models are breaking down, and what platform-level shifts mean for practitioners making decisions this quarter. It is written for people doing the work, not watching it from the outside.

  5. Where can I read past issues?

    The full archive is listed above on this page. All issues are also available on Substack. The plan is to host the canonical archive here on thelettertwo.com as the publication grows — independent of any platform.

  6. Can I republish or cite content from the newsletter?

    Yes, with attribution. Short excerpts with a link back to the original issue are fine. For longer republication or syndication, reach out via LinkedIn.

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