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Someone on your team turned a four-hour process into twenty minutes last week. You will probably never hear about it.
KPMG and the University of Melbourne surveyed 48,000 people across 47 countries and found that 57% of employees hide their AI use at work and pass the output off as their own.
Nearly half admitted using AI in ways that break company policy. IBM found unsanctioned AI in 20% of breaches last year.
That gets expensive twice over: you pay for the risk, and you never get the playbook.
More licenses won’t fix it. Here’s what’s been working for us at TA:
1. Give everyone one thing to build. We kicked off last quarter with an AI hackathon: one system per person, three months, aimed at whatever eats their week.
Tyler built a revenue pacing tool so forecasting stopped being a guessing game. I built an editor system that cut my editing time from two hours to about twenty minutes.
McKinsey looked at 25 things companies do with AI, and redesigning the workflow itself predicted profit impact more than any of the other 24. Only 21% have done it.
2. Put one name on it. Cameron came back from an AI bootcamp as our AI operator, so there’s a person to ask instead of a policy doc. Regular use climbs for employees who get at least five hours of real training. Most companies run a 30-minute demo and call it enablement.
3. Use it where people can see you. My cofounders and I are in these tools daily, breaking things in public. BCG found that with clear leadership support, the share of employees who feel good about AI’s effect on their careers jumps from 15% to 55%.
If you don’t manage anyone, this still works sideways: say it in the team channel, and you become the person people come to.
4. Say “I used AI for this” out loud. Right now that costs something. Atlassian found that on identical work, people who mentioned using AI were 24 points less likely to be recommended for high-visibility projects.
The exception is companies that celebrate AI use, where the people who disclosed were rated more efficient than the ones who stayed quiet.
That’s a culture you build one sentence at a time, starting with your own work.
5. Decide where the time goes. Regular users save the equivalent of a workday every week, and 66% get no guidance on what to do with it, so it refills with more work.
We point AI at admin so the team spends their hours on the work only they can do. If it also hands someone their Thursday afternoon, we want them to take it.
80% of workers already say they don’t have the time or energy to do their job, so giving the hours back is the whole point.
If you only do one of these, do #3. Leadership using it in the open is the difference between 15% and 55%.
Joanna (TA Co-Founder)
P.S. We’re running a live workshop on mapping out AI workflows. Save your spot here. And if you’ve already built something that you’d never go back to doing by hand, hit reply and tell me about it. I read every reply 🤗.
Somebody starts Monday, and now you’re collecting shirt sizes over email, double-checking mailing addresses, and hoping the branded hoodies clear customs before their start date.
Do it again for the work anniversary in April, the client thank-you in June, and the sales team’s conference swag in the fall, and gifting turns into its own part-time job, run out of a spreadsheet nobody else can open.
Swag.com puts every branded item, from apparel to drinkware to tech, into one online store your whole team can pull from. Send a single link, and the new hire, the client, or the whole department picks their own size and enters their own address, no chasing required.
Milestones can trigger themselves: connect it to your HRIS or Slack and a welcome kit or work-anniversary gift goes out automatically, the day it’s supposed to. Items sit in inventory ready to ship, so a last-minute order doesn’t turn into a production emergency.
Companies like Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and Spotify already run their gifting this way, and Swag.com holds a 4.6-star rating on G2 across more than 100 reviews.
You’ve bought the curl cream because your favorite influencer swears by it. The volumizing shampoo because your coworker’s hair looked amazing that one time. The leave-in conditioner because it was on sale.
None of it worked the way it was supposed to because none of it was actually for your hair.
Hair typing isn’t a TikTok trend. Stylists have used a version of this system for decades, and once you know your number, shopping for products stops being a guessing game.
The 4 hair types
Hair falls into four broad categories, each with sub-types (A, B, C) based on how tight the pattern gets.
Type 1 (straight): no natural bend from root to tip. Prone to getting oily fast since scalp oil travels the length easily.
Most people are a blend. You might be 2B at the crown and 2C underneath.
Two things that matter more than your type
Ask any stylist why 2 people with the exact same curl pattern can need completely different products, and the answer rarely has anything to do with type. It usually comes down to 2 things: porosity and strand thickness.
Porosity is how well your hair absorbs and holds moisture.
Low porosity hair resists product. It sits on top and never sinks in. High porosity hair soaks it up fast and loses it just as fast.
Quick test: drop a clean strand in a glass of water. Sinks fast, high porosity. Floats, low porosity.
Strand thickness is a different measurement entirely, and it’s the one people mix up most. You can have fine strands but a lot of them (thick density, fine texture), or thick individual strands but not many (thin density, coarse texture).
Fine strands weigh down and go greasy fast under too much product, no matter how much hair you actually have. Coarse strands can handle richer formulas and often need them.
What to actually buy
Fine strands: look for words like “volumizing” or “weightless” on the label. Living Proof’s Full Density shampoo/conditioner and Olaplex No. 4 shampoo and No. 5 conditioner both cleanse without coating the strand.
My personal fav for my fine hair is OUAI’s Fine Hair shampoo and conditioner. Skip anything labeled “intense moisture,” that’s built for a different hair type entirely.
Coarse or thick strands: richer is right here. Briogeo’s Don’t Despair Repair mask or Shea Moisture’s Manuka Honey line can handle regular use without weighing down.
Low porosity: heat helps product actually absorb instead of sitting on top. Apply conditioner or masks after a warm shower when the cuticle is more open, and look for lighter, water-based formulas rather than heavy butters that just sit on the surface.
High porosity: seal in what you just added. A leave-in like Mielle’s Pomegranate & Honey, followed by a lightweight oil (argan or grapeseed), helps hold moisture in instead of losing it within the hour.
Curl types (2-4), the LOC method: liquid first (a water-based leave-in like Kinky-Curly Knot Today), oil second to seal (jojoba or argan or blend, like Olaplex No. 7), cream or gel third to define (Rizos Curls Defining Cream or their Strong Hold Gel for firmer hold on tighter patterns).
One rule holds across every type: sulfates are powerful cleansing agents that strip natural oils. They clear out sebum, dirt, and product buildup effectively, but that same strong detergent action can leave hair and scalp drier than they need to be.
A sulfate-free option, like Briogeo’s Scalp Revival Pre-Wash Oil or QUAI’s Detox Shampoo, still cleans without the strip.
You don’t need twelve products, just the two or three that match your type, your porosity, and how much your strands can actually hold.
For the full breakdown—from figuring out your type to building the right routine—we’ve got you covered here.
Cameron (TA Team, Newsletter Operations)
The skin around your eyes is up to five times thinner than everywhere else on your face, which is exactly why it shows fatigue and fine lines first.
OneSkin’s OS-01 EYE was built for that specific vulnerability. It carries the brand’s highest concentration of OS-01, the proprietary peptide four PhD scientists developed in-house after screening more than 900 candidates.
Peer-reviewed lab studies show it targets senescent cells, the damaged cells that speed up visible aging in that thin, delicate skin. The results:
Designed entirely in-house by OneSkin’s own research team, this peptide doesn’t exist in any other skincare line.
Firmer, more hydrated eyes, backed by real collagen data.
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