applied ai July 15, 2026 3 min read
When your best asset is judgment that lives in people's heads
Every expert weather and climate-risk firm is built on judgment and haunted by the same ceiling: it scales with the expert's hours. When the founder is on a plane, the firm's best product is offline.
AI weather models are everywhere, but they don't carry the judgment. The forecasting firms that thrive won't have the biggest model — they'll be the ones whose expert judgment finally scales past one person's calendar, with the human firmly in the loop.
Eli Wood
CEO, Black Flag Design