About
Who’s behind Wiser
We’re an odd-duck mix of entrepreneurs, scientists and researchers who always stay current on AI. We built Wiser for our own work and still use it: this site was built with it.
We curated AI First Principles (aifirstprinciples.org (opens in a new tab)), a framework for governing AI, and we’ve written on making AI work in organizations, including the WISER Method and Age of Invisible Machines, a Wall Street Journal bestseller.
The people who built Wiser have worked with a former head of forensics at the FBI, who also worked at the ODNI; a former chief knowledge officer at NASA; an original contributor to the Agile Manifesto; the chief executive of an enterprise agent management platform; and engineers who deploy AI agents inside large enterprises. Wiser also builds on ideas from the wider AI field. Their experience influenced the design of Wiser Memory.
Wiser Memory is driven by a non-profit, EffectiveSC (opens in a new tab), a Colorado 501(c)(3) public charity.
Wiser is built on the WISER Method (wisermethod.com (opens in a new tab)) and on AI First Principles (aifirstprinciples.org (opens in a new tab)), both from EffectiveSC.
What we believe
AI is a powerful collaborator. Don’t trust it.
If you use AI at work and aren’t sure when to trust it, you’re not behind. That doubt is half of what we believe. The other half is that AI is worth working with anyway, as long as what it gives you gets checked before it goes anywhere: AI needs a person in the loop to set the goals, judge the quality and make the calls.
Slop is what happens when AI gets trusted without checking: output sent out as finished work because it looked finished. We’re against the habit. Not AI, and not the person who sent it.
Wiser is built to make AI look for what’s true, not for what you want to hear. Its instructions tell it to ask before it guesses, and to push back on a weak claim instead of agreeing with it. When it researches, it shows its sources and how sure to be. When a step can’t run, it says which step and puts nothing in its place. None of that makes it safe to trust. It gives you something to check.
Wiser, with eyes wide open, is literally our brand.
The founding principles
AI First Principles states it formally, at aifirstprinciples.org (opens in a new tab). It’s an open-source framework. Where a value comes from one of its principles, the line under it quotes that principle.
Six things Wiser helps you do
Stay current without chasing every new tool.
AI changes constantly. You don’t have to keep up: we curate the new skills, techniques and tools, build in what works, and deliver it to you through automatic updates. You don’t have to be an AI expert to operate like those on the frontier of AI adoption. See what’s new.
Read it before you ship it.
Nothing goes out under your name that nobody checked. In Wiser, an AI expert in that kind of work reviews it first, unless you skip the review. Its experts are AI too, and can miss things. Their check comes before yours, not instead of it.
AI Fails Silently: “Build feedback loops over post-mortems.”
It’s your name, so it’s your call.
You can explain every line you send, and “the AI wrote it” is never your answer. Wiser is built to bring the decisions that are yours back to you as a question, with its recommendation.
People Own Objectives: “Name the owner.”
Use AI in the open.
You don’t hide that you use AI, and you don’t run your work through humanizers. Work that doesn’t sound like AI isn’t work that hides AI; it’s work that sounds like you. When Wiser checks a draft for the tells of machine-made writing, it’s because they make the work worse. Nothing in it is built to fool an AI detector.
Deception Destroys Trust: “Make AI obvious, not hidden.”
Your context lives with you.
You keep your voice, your facts and the way you like work done in files you own. In Wiser those are plain files in a folder on your computer, not a chatbot’s memory of you. The same folder works in the Claude and ChatGPT desktop apps.
Individuals First: “Prioritize individual agency above efficiency, profit, or convenience.”
Finish it, then make the next one better.
You ship real work and let each piece teach the next. Wiser builds on what you’ve taught it: you can rebuild your voice from pieces you’ve actually sent, and the next draft is written from them.
Iterate Towards What Works: “Learn by doing, not planning.”
Membership is new, so everyone joining now is a founding member, and there’s no cost to join.