This week we feature articles from Shayne Longpre, and Hugo Bowne-Anderson & Alan Nichol.
Additional reading comes from Deborah Turness, Cory Doctorow, Kurt Cagle, and Michael Andrews.
News comes from Perplexity, Sprinklr & Bluesky, Databricks & SAP, accessiBe, and Transperfect.
Our next issue arrives March 5.
All previous issues are available at https://gilbane.com/gilbane-advisor-index
Opinion / Analysis
AI crawler wars threaten to make the web more closed
There’s an accelerating cat-and-mouse game between web publishers and AI crawlers, and we all stand to lose.
Shayne Longpre explains how this is likely to play out. He is not optimistic, but is hopeful. I’m sure he would love to hear about happier alternatives. You can reach him the Data Provenance Initiative. (5 min)
https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/11/1111518/ai-crawler-wars-closed-web
Beyond prompt-and-pray
Building reliable LLM-powered software in an agentic world
Companies may be excited about the potential of AI agents, but enterprise workflows are complex and largely mission-critical, so most organizations are sensibly leery. Hugo Bowne-Anderson & Alan Nichol propose a “Structured automation … development approach that separates conversational AI’s natural language understanding from deterministic workflow execution”. Good advice. (8 min)
https://www.oreilly.com/radar/beyond-prompt-and-pray
More Reading
- BBC research shows issues with over half the answers from Artificial Intelligence (AI) assistants via BBC
- You should be using an RSS reader. Totally! via Cory Doctorow
- Attention and relevance are different via Story Needle
- MarkLogic gets a serious upgrade via The Cagle Report
Content technology news
Introducing Perplexity Deep Research
Deep Research performs dozens of searches, reads hundreds of sources, and reasons through the material to autonomously deliver a comprehensive report.
www.perplexity.ai
Sprinklr announces new integration with Bluesky
Customers can use the Sprinklr platform to engage audiences on Bluesky, deliver consistent content, track metrics, and gather insights to inform brand strategies.
https://www.sprinklr.com
Databricks announces launch of SAP Databricks
The partnership with SAP natively integrates the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform within the newly launched SAP Business Data Cloud.
https://www.databricks.com/blog/introducing-sap-databricks
accessiBe updates accessFlow for native accessibility in web projects
Developers can achieve lasting accessibility improvements at a native level across web projects in alignment with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
https://accessibe.com
Transperfect acquires Apostroph Group
Apostroph expands TransPerfect’s footprint in the region, which includes client service, production, and studio facilities in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
https://www.transperfect.com
The Gilbane Advisor is authored by Frank Gilbane and is ad-free, cost-free, and curated for content, computing, web, data, and digital experience technology and information professionals. We publish recommended articles and content technology news most Wednesdays. We do not sell or share personal data.
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