The Experiment Log · fortnightly

Your AI edge, tested not borrowed.

Build your unfair advantage at work. Experiment your way to AI that actually works for you.

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One real experiment every fortnight. Keep only what works for you.

A decade of experiments for NatWest Vitality RNLI

10+ yrs

of experiments, keeping only what’s worked.

Built, not copied

Inside each issue

One experiment, run for real

A single AI experiment on actual work: the setup, the result, and whether it worked.

What’s worth testing, what to skip

The tools and prompts worth your time this fortnight, and the hype worth ignoring.

A move you can try on Monday

One concrete thing to test and make work for you.

Steve feeding one real task into a testing machine. A gauge measures it, and it comes out as a green-lit checkmark and an upward trend.

Tested, not borrowed

The belief

Stop following. Start testing.

The people getting least from AI are not the ones who refused it. They are the ones who bought every tool, copied every prompt and just stopped there. They get generic results. The people getting ahead do the opposite. They test AI on real work, make it work for them, keep what works and bin the rest. The result is an edge built on their own work. Nobody else can copy it.

The method

The Edge Loop: five steps, one proven gain at a time.

It turns scattered AI use into proven improvements in how you work. Start with one real task. Prove a better way. Then stack the next win.

See the method

Pick

One real task from your work.

Test

An AI approach against how you do it today.

Measure

The difference in time, quality or output.

Keep

The approach only if it works for you.

Stack

The win into your workflow.

↻Then run the loop again

The evidence

I run the experiments. You see the numbers.

Every experiment starts with a real task and ends with an honest verdict: kept or binned. Here is one.

Experiment log 014 Kept

TaskRun GEO and code reviews at a UK retail bank.

Before

5 hrs300 min

across three roles, three diaries to align

After

20 min

with one engineer, no handoffs

93% less time

93%

less time on every review

486 hours

saved a year, two reviews a week

£33,150

saved a year, £318.75 a review

VerdictKept. One engineer runs the review with AI now, and spends the time saved acting on the findings, not producing them.

A decade of this before AI

+28% donation journey conversion at RNLI. +14% health quote leads at Vitality. +162% year-on-year colour consultant bookings at Farrow & Ball. Building AI inside NatWest since 2023.

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Who this is for

You already use AI. You are getting generic results and want to make it better.

You have tried the prompts, followed the newsletters and downloaded the tools. Some save time once. Few become part of how you work, and none gives you an advantage that lasts. You want something measurable that makes you better at the work that matters.

I use AI every day, but I am not getting ahead.

I keep trying prompts. Almost none become part of how I work.

Every tool gives me a quick win. Nothing compounds.

About me

Your AI advantage has to be yours.

I’m Steve Quinlan. I help you find the AI advantage that’s yours: built around your work, not borrowed from a guru or copied from a prompt pack. A decade of experiments in product and conversion taught me the rule that still holds. Test it on your own work, keep what wins.

More about me

Product and conversion experiments since 2012. Building with AI since 2022.

Work with me