October 2026
Covering September through the 27th: lower model prices, agent risks, applications a business can own, and practical knowledge people can use and share.
About
Holden Richardson
I build production AI systems inside real companies, and I run my own businesses on them.
In practice, I write down how your team already works, in a form your people and the software can both use. Then I build one system against one real process, and together we measure what changed.
As of fall 2026, my deepest work has been inside West Michigan manufacturers, on the document work between the office and the floor. The same method applies anywhere the work runs on repeatable documents, so non-profits, manufacturers’ reps and distributors, and other organizations are welcome here too.
- Based
- West Michigan
- Founded
- 2026
- Focus
- Manufacturing first
- Holden Richardson
Lineage
Second-generation operations work
My father was a hands-on manufacturing operations consultant. He re-engineered the physical operation: he moved machines, changed processes, standardized work and managed vendors. I do the same kind of work on the information side: how quotes, drawings, reports and decisions move through a company, where they stall, and what a well-built system can carry.
Dad standardized the floor, and Richardson Applied AI standardizes the knowledge work. Anyone who has run lean knows standard work: the current best method, followed by everyone and revised on purpose when something better turns up. The Operating Standard we install is standard work for your knowledge work.
The businesses I work with don’t need a playbook, they need somebody standing in their building who can see how the work actually moves and leave behind a standard that holds after he’s gone.
How I work
One person, in your building, with your team
At the desks where the work happens
Working sessions happen on site, at the desks and stations of the people who do the job. I start from the last real piece of work they finished, like the last quote or the last report, build with them in the room, and they decide where a person checks the result. Some of the build work between sessions runs remotely, inside your accounts.
You work with me
Richardson Applied AI is my practice, so the person you talk to first is the same person who scopes the work and builds it with your team.
Your accounts, your passwords
The systems I build live in your accounts, under your logins, with passwords in your password manager. At least two of your own people can get into all of it without me. Cadence, the ongoing support after the handoff, is optional and month to month.
Straight answers, sourced numbers
If AI won’t move anything for you yet, I’ll say so and tell you what would change my answer. We measure how the process runs today before we claim anything changed, and every number I publish carries a source, or there’s no number.
My own method
I run my own company on the method I install
I learned this on my own company first. Richardson Applied AI runs on its own Operating Standard, kept in plain files I own, with the same process files, baselines, dated decision log and review points I set up for clients.
The system that tracks my client conversations keeps an audit trail, and nothing goes out to a real person without my approval. State of AI runs through the same checks: I approve every edition before it publishes, and every page gets checked again once it’s live.
State of AI
A monthly read on where AI stands
State of AI is my monthly report for people who run companies. Every number links to its source, and claims that can’t be traced get cut.
All editionsTell me about the work.
Send a message or email me. A sentence or two about the process you’d like to see done better is plenty.
Conversations are always free.