VANDAMAI Colleague
Hear what changed in AI each weekand what it means for your company.
A weekly call of 30 to 60 minutes, with a one-page brief sent the day before. We read the model launches, the updates to tools you already pay for, the new rules and what your industry is doing, check all of it against what your company runs and is building, and tell you what to try, what to watch and what to ignore.
$2,400/mo weekly call · monthly, stop any month
28 things shipped in AI this week.For Atlas & Co., 5 made the agenda.
- Microsoft 365
- Logistics
- Order-status agent
- Carrier portal
- Phone orders
- Copilot agents can now work in shared mailboxesMicrosoft 365
- A lab publishes a long safety reportNews
- A bar association publishes rules for AI in client workRule
- Shopify automations can call an AI stepTool
- A coding assistant adds background tasksTool
- A frontier lab ships a cheaper mid-size modelOrder-status agent
- An agent startup raises a record roundNews
- A second lab doubles its context windowModel
- Teams meeting recaps list action items by ownerTool
- An AI search engine launches a shopping assistantTool
- Chip export rules change againNews
- A large forwarder automates its customs paperworkIndustry
- A carrier opens an API for rebooking shipmentsLogistics
- Gemini in Gmail drafts replies from Drive filesTool
- A meeting-notes app adds a free tierTool
- EU AI Act guidance on telling users they talk to AIRule
- An image model gets better at product photosModel
- A browser agent fills in web forms on its ownCarrier portal
- An open-weights model runs on one office serverModel
- A video model makes one-minute product clipsModel
- A European retailer moves first-line service to AIIndustry
- A spreadsheet agent builds reports from plain requestsTool
- A privacy regulator questions a company’s chatbotRule
- A new model tops a reasoning benchmarkSent by the CEO
- An open-source agent framework goes viralNews
- A big-four firm rolls out AI to every lawyerIndustry
- A rival retailer announces an AI-first strategyIndustry
- A voice model takes phone orders in Dutch and FrenchModel
Tuesday 09:30, 30 minutes. Brief sent Monday.
- Try
Copilot agents can now work in shared mailboxes
Order questions land in the shared service mailbox. Test it on one week of that mail before the order-status build starts.
- Try
A frontier lab ships a cheaper mid-size model
Run the order-status eval suite on it. If it passes, the agent costs less to run every month.
- Watch
A carrier opens an API for rebooking shipments
Your main carrier has no API yet. Ask at the next carrier review whether theirs is coming, rebooking depends on it.
- Watch
A browser agent fills in web forms on its own
It could rebook through the carrier website in the meantime. Too early to trust with live orders.
- Ignore
A new model tops a reasoning benchmark
Nothing you run or plan changes with it.
Questions by message until next week’s call.
An example week. The companies are fictional and the releases illustrative.
AI ships faster than companies can read it.
- 88%
- of organizations now use AI.
Stanford HAI, AI Index 2026. - 1 year
- for the best models to go from 60% to near 100% on SWE-bench Verified, a standard coding test. Stanford HAI, same report.
At dinner, someone asked the table, “If a new model drops next month, does your company get better or worse?” HALF the table went quiet!
Late CheckoutOctober 2026Source The headline someone forwarded on Monday often ends up under ignore.
More ships each week than anyone can read.
One person reads it with your company in mind.
Every week a lab ships a model, 
Microsoft and Google add features to tools you already pay for, 
ChatGPT and 
Claude change what they can connect to, and a regulator publishes guidance. Most of it has nothing to do with your company. The few items that change what your team should try this month arrive in the same stream as everything else.
Without a filter the stream reaches the company anyway, through whoever reads the most. A board member forwards a headline, a competitor announces a strategy, and a decision gets made on what was in the news that week instead of on what fits your systems.
We do the reading. Each week Hendrik or a named VANDAM lead goes through the releases with your profile next to them: the tools you run, your industry, the projects you have open and the questions your team sent in. You get a one-page brief and a call. When something on the call is worth building, it becomes a scoped project, often a Pilot Workshop or an Agent-Ready Audit.
If a general read is enough for now, VANDAM Weekly is the free version: one email a week that Hendrik writes for every company at once.
What leadership reads each week.
The brief opens on the week: every item that passed the filter, a line or two on what it means for you, and its mark. A try item carries a name and a date, a watch item the moment to look again, and an ignore item one sentence on why.
Over the months the archive becomes the record of what the company decided about AI and why. Anyone can ask what you concluded about 
Copilot agents in the spring and get the brief, the call notes and the decision.
What every week includes.
Your stack and your questions differ. The week runs the same way.
Release watch
Models, tools, open-source and regulation, read every working day.
Company profile
Your stack, industry, open projects and questions, kept current with you.
Filter
Every item held against the profile. Most are dropped.
One-page brief
What changed and what it means for you, marked try, watch or ignore.
The call
30 to 60 minutes with the people who decide.
Questions by message
Answers in between, when something lands mid-week.
Brief archive
Every brief, call note and decision, searchable.
Next to build
Items worth building, turned into a scoped project.
How a week runs.
Read the week
From Monday to Friday we follow model launches, updates to
Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, ChatGPT, Claude and the other tools you use, open-source models, regulation such as the EU AI Act, and what companies in your industry announce.Check it against your company
Each item is held against your profile: your stack, your industry, your open projects and the questions your team sent in. What passes gets a line on what it means for you and a mark: try, watch or ignore. Most items do not pass.
Brief, then call
The one-page brief arrives the day before. On the call we go through it, answer what came up during the week and agree who tries what by when. The decisions go into the brief archive.
A record that builds up.
Yours to keep.
Every brief, call note and decision is stored in your own workspace, so the record stays with the company when people change roles. The profile is updated as your stack and projects change. You can stop any month and keep everything.
Weekly call
30 to 60 minutes with Hendrik or a named VANDAM lead.
One-page brief
Sent the day before, every item marked try, watch or ignore.
Questions in between
By message, whenever something comes up during the week.
Profile updates
Your stack, projects and questions updated as they change.
What you
receive.
Weekly call
30 to 60 minutes with Hendrik or a named VANDAM lead.
One-page brief
What changed, what it means for you, and what to try, watch or ignore.
Questions in between
Ask by message when something lands in the middle of the week.
Brief archive
Every brief and decision kept, a record of what you chose and why.
Where the weekly call leads.
Each next step has its own service.
Before you ask.
Who is on the call?
Hendrik or a named VANDAM lead on our side. On yours, usually the CEO and whoever owns AI, sometimes the full leadership team. It works best with the same people each week.
What do you need from us to filter?
A first conversation about the tools you run, your industry, the projects you have open and the questions on the table. From there we keep the profile current with you.
Is there a free version?
Yes. VANDAM Weekly is a general weekly email that Hendrik writes for every company at once. AI Colleague is the same reading, checked against your company, with a call.
Will you push us toward a vendor?
We work model-agnostic and on the stack you already have. VANDAM is a Claude implementation partner and often suggests Claude first, and we say so when that is the case. Most weeks the advice is about tools you already pay for.
What happens when something is worth building?
We scope it as a separate project with its own price, usually a Pilot Workshop or an Agent-Ready Audit first. The call stays the place where you decide what to start.
Can we stop?
Any month. The brief archive stays with you.