The Best of TechSips 2025: From Factories to Monopolies

A look back at the 5 conversations that defined my year

“We didn't just build faster AI in 2025; we finally learned where the human fits inside the machine.” — Nadina D. Lisbon

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As I sit here wrapping up 2025, the dust is finally settling on a wild twelve months. We started the year wondering what these models could do, and we’re ending it discussing who owns them and how to run them like a business. It’s been a year of moving from smoke and mirrors to industrial factories. I’ve gone through my archive and pulled the top five editions of TechSips that meant the most to you—and to me. If you only read one email to prepare for 2026, let it be this collection.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

3 Tech Bites

• 🏭 When I Realized It Was an Industry

  • We officially moved past the "chatbot" era and into the "agent" era this year. In The AI Factory is Now Open [3], I explored how AI isn't just a tool anymore; it's a system of production. But this scale brought a reality check. In The Stack is a Monopoly [1], I had to address the uncomfortable truth of tech consolidation. 2025 was the year compute power became the new oil, and I highlight exactly who holds the drilling rights.

• 🕵🏽‍♀️My Quest to Demystify the "Ghost"

  • To control the tech, I believe we have to understand it. That's why I dedicated so much time to architecture this year. The Brain of AI [2] was my deep dive into reasoning models (System 2 thinking), moving beyond simple pattern matching. I paired this with Unpacking LLMs [4], a back-to-basics guide where I broke down how these transformers actually predict the next token. If you felt like AI got "smarter" and less hallucinatory this year, these two pieces explain why.

• 🛑 The Hardest Conversation We Had

  • The technology improved, but I questioned whether we were improving with it. My most controversial (and shared) post of the year was Stop, You're Using AI Wrong [5]. I realized that treating an LLM like a search engine is a recipe for mediocrity. The winners I saw in 2025 weren't the best coders; they were the best context architects. If you're still just asking questions without setting the stage, you're leaving 90% of the capability on the table.

5-Minute Strategy

🧠 My 2025 “Tech Stack” Audit

Before we calibrate our goals for 2026, I’m running a quick diagnostic on how the “Big 5” concepts functioned in reality. Ask yourself these 3 questions:

1. The Monopoly Check

   1. Look at your software subscriptions. Are you locked into a single ecosystem (Apple/Microsoft/Google) because of their AI integration?

   2. Action: Identify one open-source or independent alternative to test in January.

2. The Factory Check

   1. Identify a repetitive task you did this week. Why isn’t it an Agent yet?

   2. Action: Draft a simple prompt chain to automate that specific task using the principles from [3].

3. The Usage Check

   1. Review your last 3 prompts. Did you talk to the AI like a Google Search bar, or like a junior colleague?

   2. Action: Rewrite your most recent prompt adding “Persona, Context, and Constraints” to see the difference.

1 Big Idea

💡 The Human Element in the Age of the AI Factory

If 2023 was the year of “Wow,” and 2024 was the year of “How,” 2025 has undeniably been the year of “Now What?”

I spent the last twelve months dissecting the machinery of this transformation with you. We saw the "Factory" open its doors [3], and it turned intelligence into a commodity that we could pipe into our homes like water or electricity. We watched the “Stack” solidify into a monopoly [1], raising serious ethical questions about who holds the keys to our collective knowledge. But amidst all my writing on neural networks, reasoning models [2], and token probabilities [4], the variable I keep coming back to is the one made of flesh and bone.

The biggest risk heading into 2026 isn’t that AI will become too powerful, but that we will become too passive. When I see us “use AI wrong” [5], delegating our critical thinking rather than our busy work, I worry. We let the monopoly dictate our information diet. We let the factory produce generic thoughts. The system is engineered to target the average, favoring the standard response. If we lean on it too heavily without injecting our own unique human perspective, we risk a cultural and intellectual regression to the mean.

However, I see a massive opportunity here. By understanding the “Brain” of the AI [2], we can stop fearing it and start directing it. The leaders I’m betting on for 2026 are the ones who treat AI not as an oracle, but as a scaffold. They will use the efficiency of the “Factory” to buy back time for human connection, deep strategy.

As we turn the page to a new year, my challenge to you is this: Don’t just be a consumer of the AI stack. Be an active participant. Question the monopoly, direct the factory, and never stop refining the human input. The machine is only as good as the intention behind it.

P.S. Thank you for sipping with me in 2025! 🥂 I’m taking a short break to recharge my own neural network. Share this newsletter and help brew up strong relationships!

P.P.S. If you found these AI insights valuable, a contribution to the Brew Pot helps keep the future of work brewing.

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Cheers,

Nadina

Host of TechSips with Nadina | Chief Strategy Architect ☕️🍵