The Control Layer

The Control Layer

Home
Podcast
Artificial Intelligence
CyberSecurity
Geopolitics
Members Club
Archive
About

Art rarely changes a vote

Marina Hyde says artists don’t change politics. Mr Bates, John Lennon and a July 2026 House vote say art changes what politicians can survive saying.
READ THE LATEST
The demand signal you called a breach
The NCSC names the cause of shadow AI in one sentence, then spends the rest of the page on symptoms. Its own 2023 guidance said all of it first.
 • Amer Altaf
Ten people beat the banks
Jessi Szurek spent twenty years transforming global banks and insurers. Then her husband acquired a ten-person auto body shop that ran on paper, and it…
 • Amer Altaf
The agent had permission
Elastic's CISO says agent identity will have to be handled as the opposite of human identity. She is right about where this ends. The failure sits one…
 • Amer Altaf
The mess that bills you twice: eighteen months of shadow AI, and the five layers between you and value
Sam Parkinson builds a five-rung AI maturity ladder on this week's episode. It measures what your organisation has bought. It does not measure whether…
 • Amer Altaf
An AI agent told Zebra it had made $10 billion. That's the mistake its CIO isn't worried about.
Matt Ausman governs AI agents across a global operation. The errors that worry him are the ones too small to catch — and nobody has decided who carries…
 • Amer Altaf
Who authorises the machine?
Identity is easy. Authorisation is the wall — and it is where most enterprise AI is quietly dying.
 • Amer Altaf
The week the frontier split in two
Fable 5's terms changed six times in six weeks. Moonshot answered with a download date. Access is the new benchmark.
 • Amer Altaf
1:19:45
Whose Values Does Your AI Run On?
Dr Craig A. Kaplan on the architecture problem nobody is solving in AI
 • Amer Altaf
Just because you can, should you? Inside a bank's AI ethics panel
A UK bank runs every AI use case through a five-word test before it ships. The man who chairs the panel gets an email a day saying he is too slow. He…
 • Amer Altaf
The Control Layer
The Control Layer
AI is being wired into your bank, your hospital, and your job. The Control Layer explains what that means for you, and how to use it to get ahead. Weekly, from Amer Altaf, former CIO, now building AI agents in the UK and Europe. Understand it first.
Recommendations
View all 16
ClariSynth
ClariSynth
ClariSynth
Fintricity News and Thoughts
Fintricity News and Thoughts
Fintricity
Slow AI
Slow AI
Dr Sam Illingworth
Chartbook
Chartbook
Adam Tooze
TechJournal.uk
TechJournal.uk
Jeff Pao
Podcast
Youtube
Watch the Podcast
Spotify
Listen to the Podcast
Apple Podcasts
Listen to the Podcast
Need Help with AI?
Contact Arkava
From Desire to Trusted Agentic Operations
Member of
TechUK
The UK's technology trade association
ADS Group
the UK trade association advancing leadership in aerospace, defence, security and space, to enable prosperity and clean, secure growth for our nation

Subscribe

AI is being wired into your bank, your hospital, and your job. The Control Layer explains what that means for you, and how to use it to get ahead. Weekly, from Amer Altaf, former CIO, now building AI agents in the UK and Europe. Understand it first.
AboutArchiveRecommendationsSitemap
The Control Layer
© 2026 Amer Altaf · Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start your SubstackGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture