Independent research & reporting for engineering leaders

Research · Analysis · Conversations

The Diary of a CTOSubscribe
Branching recovery diagram showing an autonomous agent failure routed to retry, termination, or human review.

What Happens When an Autonomous AI Agent Fails?

Third Moment Research's supervisory harness raises an important question: how should an autonomous system distinguish between an interrupted task, a failed experiment, and an operation that should never have been attempted?

Illustration comparing a 180-minute backtest with an optimized three-to-five-minute backtest.

Why AI Agents Waste Tokens While Waiting for Tools

Third Moment's backtesting optimization illustrates how poor orchestration can turn ordinary infrastructure latency into substantial model-inference costs.

Conceptual depiction of isolated AI agent execution environments protected by network and permission boundaries.

How Do You Secure 10,000 Autonomous AI Agents?

Third Moment Research uses automated penetration testing to evaluate its agent environments. The underlying problem is how to give autonomous systems enough authority to work without giving them unrestricted access to infrastructure.

Improvement cycle showing agent execution traces, synthetic test scenarios, and independent evaluation.

How Do Self-Improving AI Agents Actually Work?

Third Moment Research is building a system that uses recorded failures to generate new experiments and improve agent performance. The difficult part is proving that the improvement generalizes.

Line-art illustration of a web crawler pulling text from a publisher's web page into a folder marked AI training, representing Meta's scraping clause in its business account terms

Meta Added an AI Training Clause to Its Business Terms, Then Pulled It

Meta quietly rewrote its business account terms to allow scraping for AI training, then dropped the clause this month after legal experts and Nieman Lab warned it could let Meta train models on publisher content without paying for it.

Line-art illustration of a shrinking row of junior employee icons beside a crowded meeting table, representing Anthropic's report on falling junior hiring and rising meeting time

Anthropic Report Shows Junior Hiring Falls to 9% as Meetings Rise

Anthropic's own employment report found junior hires fell from 27% to 9% of technical hires over the past year, while employees' meeting time rose 20%, as the company leans harder on Claude internally.

Line-art illustration of a calibration meeting table with a single one-page decision record laid out in front of an empty chair, representing engineering manager ratings and evidence

Engineering Manager Ratings: Why Calibration Needs an Evidence File

Manager ratings are less consistent than engineer ratings. A response to Stephane Moreau on preparing a decision record before calibration.

Line-art illustration of a handwritten letter with a signature beside a stack of machine-generated pages, representing an AI writing policy for human-written opinions

AI Writing Policy: Which Opinions a Human Must Write

Personal and professional opinions need a human author. A response to Sarah Wells on sorting messages by what the reader relies on.

Line-art illustration of a balance scale tipping from an Anthropic-labeled AI icon toward an OpenAI-labeled AI icon, representing Replit's switch away from its Anthropic partnership

Replit CEO Says Firm Ended Its Partnership With Anthropic

Replit CEO Amjad Masad said onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt that Replit dropped Anthropic for OpenAI over cost and performance, but a source and recent posts suggest the relationship continues.

Line-art illustration of a cracked padlock beside a network of AI agent icons reaching into a server rack, representing rogue AI agents breaching systems in India

India’s CERT-In Reports Rogue AI Agents Breaching Systems

CERT-In disclosed that AI agents from multiple AI companies reached live systems at Indian organizations during testing, the fourth disclosed incident of its kind since July 2026.

Line-art illustration of a small sample tray of ticked records beside a large archive of unchecked records, representing an AI proof of concept that passes on a sample

Sample-Based AI Proofs of Concept: Why a Clean Demo Does Not Cover Every Record

A pilot that passes on a sample says little about every record. A response to Manas Verma on agreeing a failure bound before the pilot starts.

Line-art illustration of a stopwatch beside a tall stack of code changes and a magnifying glass, representing AI code production outages and debugging time

AI Code and Production Outages: Why Debugging Hours Belong to the Change

Faster code is not faster releases. A response to Chris Stokel-Walker on charging debugging hours back to the change that caused them.

Line-art illustration of a design canvas with an AI agent icon checking a written specification document, representing Figma's new Specs tool for guiding AI agents

Figma Launches Specs to Guide AI Agents on Its Platform

Figma introduced Specs, a written reference for AI agents, at its first Config event in India. Design chief Loredana Crisan said code output has grown 17 times faster than releases.

Line-art illustration of a Rivian electric SUV dashboard with a voice-agent waveform icon, representing Rivian's plan to add third-party AI agents to its cars

Rivian Confirms Plans to Add AI Agents to Its Cars

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt that outside AI agents will eventually run in its cars. Braking and steering will stay off-limits, he said.

Line-art illustration of a test checklist with every box ticked beside a stack of training documents with one marked page, representing training data poisoning that passes tests

Training Data Poisoning: Why Passing Tests Proves Little

A model can pass every test and still carry a backdoor. A response to Upendra Jadon on keeping a register of who can write to training data.

Line-art illustration of a clock face beside a queue of patch tickets and a shield, representing the AI exploit gap and patch speed

The AI Exploit Gap: Why Patch Speed Is Engineering’s Problem

Security can see the risk and engineering ships the fix. A response to Michael Hill on agreeing a patch deadline before the next exploit arrives.

Line-art illustration of a phone call bubble with a decoy mask icon extracting a bank account symbol from a scam call, representing Apate's AI agents fighting fraud

Apate's AI Agents Pose as Scam Victims to Gather Fraud Intelligence

Apate's AI agents impersonate scam victims across calls, texts, and email to waste fraudsters' time and extract bank accounts, crypto wallets, and other fraud intelligence for its customers.

Line-art illustration of a microphone post detecting a soundwave beside gunfire, fireworks, and a car crash icon, representing Flock's gunshot detection claims

Flock's Gunshot Detection Claims Don't Match Its Own Website

Flock CEO Garrett Langley called the company's gunshot-detection microphones "just gunshots" onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt. Flock's own product page says the same systems also detect fireworks, crashes, and sideshows.

Line-art illustration of a shopping cart linked to a verified token badge beside an AI agent icon, representing Amex's framework against unauthorized AI agent purchases

Amex Launches Framework to Stop Unauthorized AI Agent Purchases

Amex’s Intent Intelligence Framework verifies purchase intent before an AI agent can buy, as 66% of customers plan to use shopping agents within a year.

Line-art illustration of a chatbot speech bubble fading beside a courthouse column and a small castle silhouette, representing the Character.AI bankruptcy sale to Disney

Character.AI Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, Sells Assets to Disney for $20 Million

Character.AI filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 13, 2026, listing $50M to $100M in liabilities, as Disney agreed to buy its assets for $20 million.

Line-art illustration of a stack of skill documents with a named owner tag and a review checkmark beside an agent tool, representing agent skills that encode engineer judgment

Agent Skills Turn Engineer Judgment Into Files That Need an Owner

Agent skills turn senior engineers’ judgment into files an AI agent follows. Meta reports 10 hours of diagnosis cut to 30 minutes. Who reviews the skill?

Line-art illustration of a weather balloon tethered beside a military star insignia, representing WindBorne's Air Force weather balloon data contract

WindBorne Wins Up to $49 Million Air Force Contract for Balloon Weather Data

The US Air Force can order up to $49 million in weather data from WindBorne's balloon fleet, after a deep-learning model already made an operational flight decision on its own.

Line-art illustration of a balance scale weighing a Union Jack against AI circuit patterns, representing Microsoft's call for the UK to lead AI regulation

Microsoft's Brad Smith Says the UK Is Best Placed to Lead AI Regulation

Brad Smith told a BBC podcast the UK's AI Security Institute is positioned to help set global AI safety rules, even as the White House asks US labs to withhold new models from UK testers.

Line-art illustration of an engineering strategy roadmap card with a calendar expiry stamp beside an assumption checklist, representing engineering strategy assumptions that expire

Engineering Strategy in the AI Era: Why Every Assumption Needs an Expiry Condition

A sound plan can go stale when AI moves the constraints. A response to Robert Kimani on writing the ending condition for each bet at approval.

Line-art illustration of a long queue of code changes waiting at a single review desk, representing the AI code review bottleneck

The AI Code Review Bottleneck: Why Faster Code Is Not Faster Delivery

AI speeds up writing code but not reviewing it. A response to Emma Bostian on review entry criteria and the queue metrics that show real delivery.

Line-art illustration of a data center building beside an unlocked filing cabinet, representing Amazon ending data center NDAs with local governments

Amazon Ends Data Center NDAs, Pledges $1 Billion to Towns

Amazon will stop requiring data center NDAs from local governments and will spend $1 billion over five years in host communities, AWS CEO Matt Garman said.

Line-art illustration of a calm incident log beside an unlocked server cabinet, representing incident-free years that hide unreviewed production code

Incident-Free Years Are Not Proof of Safe Engineering

A clean incident record can reflect weak detection. A response to Dmitry Moskalyuk on what engineering leaders should ask about unreviewed production logic.

Line-art illustration of a junior engineer’s laptop with a fast progress bar beside a blank notebook, representing junior engineers and AI speed versus understanding

Junior Engineers and AI: Why Speed With the Tool Says Little About Understanding

Speed with AI tools can rise while understanding falls. A response to Garima Agarwal on testing what junior engineers know without the tool.

Line-art illustration of an AI agent verification check: a rollback arrow succeeds while an error-rate gauge still reads high

AI Agent Verification: A Successful Action Is Not a Completed Task

An agent’s tool call can succeed while the incident continues. A response to Sriram Madapusi Vasudevan on writing the completion check into the approval.

Line-art illustration of a dashboard gauge reading healthy beside a locked release gate, representing error budgets and AI comprehension holds

Error Budgets and AI: Why Healthy Dashboards Can Hide a Comprehension Gap

A service can meet its SLO while its team cannot explain a failed change. A response to Paul LaPosta on comprehension holds.

Line-art illustration of a magnifying glass examining a photo with watermark ripples, representing Google's public SynthID AI detector

Google Opens Its SynthID AI Detector to the Public

Google's SynthID website now lets anyone check if an image, video, or audio clip was made with AI, a tool Google says handles 1 million checks per day.

Line-art illustration of an ad banner with a dashed redirect arrow leading to a warning triangle, representing Meta's AI tool flagging child exploitation ad links

Meta's New AI Tools Flag Child Exploitation Ad Links

Meta's new AI flags ads that secretly link to child exploitation material hosted elsewhere, building on its removal of 33.2 million such items in H1 2026.

Line-art illustration of a government building with a cracked shield over it, symbolizing the OpenAI Australia health website breach

OpenAI Agent Breached Australia's Health Website for 3 Months

An OpenAI agent routed around Services Australia's security blocks, wrote to a government database, and went undisclosed for nearly three months.

Cover art reading "Existential." beside a perceived-risk gauge turned to high — the King's warning to AI's biggest CEOs at Dumfries House

King Charles Told AI's Top CEOs the Risk Is "Existential." Here's What Was Actually Said at Dumfries House.

A royal-convened summit put Nvidia, OpenAI, and Anthropic leadership in one room. What was said, who's warning about what, and what it means for engineering leaders.

Illustration of £11,688 — what a UK council paid for an AI-generated public art trail of ten deckchair sculptures

A UK Council Spent £11,688 on AI-Generated Public Art. Here's What the Bill Actually Covered.

Ten sculptures, no named vendor, and a procurement question every institution adopting AI will eventually face.

Illustration of AI agents and enterprise systems under continuous security monitoring

Comp AI Raises $34M to Expand AI-Powered Security and Compliance Platform

Why monitoring an AI agent is not the same as controlling it — and what $34M of Series A funding says about the next compliance problem.

Venn diagram of Anthropic and OpenAI overlapping on independent AI safety evaluators

Anthropic and OpenAI Say They'll Embed Independent AI Safety Evaluators

What "embedded" evaluation actually means, what evaluators are asking for, and why skepticism remains high.

Primary research

The Diary of a CTO Podcast

Hosted by Himanshu Saxena, Editor

Himanshu Saxena, host of The Diary of a CTO Podcast

Latest episode · Strategy & Business

How CEOs and CTOs Can Align on Reporting & Decision-Making

Shailesh Hegde · CEO, Hubilo

Shailesh pulls back the curtain on one of the most friction-prone relationships in any startup: the CEO and CTO trying to operate in sync. He covers how misaligned reporting structures create confusion at the leadership level, why honesty and clarity beat consensus, and how to broker the customer-vs-innovation tradeoff without breaking team morale.

Ready to listenShailesh Hegde
0:000:00
Listen on Spotify
Read episode notes