A small operation, by design

theAIFolks publishes evidence-graded AI strategy research, one industry at a time, using one framework applied consistently: Automation vs. Invention × Individual vs. Institutional. The audience is people making AI strategy and investment decisions — CTOs, corporate strategy teams, PE/VC — not a general tech-news readership.

TheAIFolks is an initiative by Manasi K G and Sudhir Patavardhan — an agenda focused on moving AI strategy past purchasable automation toward invention and durable institutional capability. Sudhir introduced the Two Hills of AI framework in the original LinkedIn article; every report on this site applies it.

This is a small operation. There is no research staff, no analyst bench, no peer-review board. Whatever authority these reports earn has to come from somewhere other than headcount — so it comes from discipline you can audit: every claim numbered, dated, and tiered against its source; every report shipping with the full evidence log and a "Known gaps" section listing what we looked for and could not establish; every thesis attacked in a recorded adversarial session before publication. The Methodology page describes each of these mechanisms; every domain's Research Materials page lets you check them.

Domain status labels mean what they say. "In research" means the work is not finished; "Planned" means announced and not started. A report is only called published once it has passed final review, including surviving its own adversarial grill log.

What this site is not

• Not a vendor rating. No magic quadrants, no leader/challenger badges, no side-by-side vendor comparisons. Each domain gets its own 2×2 of its own initiatives — never a ranking of companies or of domains against each other.
• Not a feed. Reports are organized by industry, not by date. There are no comments, likes, or engagement mechanics.
• Not paywalled. Everything here is free to read. Email capture exists so we can tell you when a new domain report goes live — that's all it does.
• Weekly. A new domain report ships every Thursday, and it publishes only after surviving the full process — research, evidence log, adversarial review. Subscribers get a note the day it's live.

The name

Every AI journey climbs the first hill — automation: real, purchasable productivity gains. The reports here are about the second hill — invention: what AI makes possible that was previously impossible, and how that becomes a capability an institution actually keeps. The framework, and the quality-engineering case it was built from, are on the Methodology page.