ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
An AI-native strategy firmGlobal Advisors: a consulting leader in defining quantified strategy, decreasing uncertainty, improving decisions, achieving measureable results.
A Different Kind of Partner in an AI World
AI-native strategy
consulting
Experienced hires
We are hiring experienced top-tier strategy consultants
Quantified Strategy
Decreased uncertainty, improved decisions
Global Advisors is a leader in defining quantified strategies, decreasing uncertainty, improving decisions and achieving measureable results.
We specialise in providing highly-analytical data-driven recommendations in the face of significant uncertainty.
We utilise advanced predictive analytics to build robust strategies and enable our clients to make calculated decisions.
We support implementation of adaptive capability and capacity.
Our latest
Thoughts
Podcast – The Real AI Signal from Davos 2026
While the headlines from Davos were dominated by geopolitical conflict and debates on AGI timelines and asset bubbles, a different signal emerged from the noise. It wasn’t about if AI works, but how it is being ruthlessly integrated into the real economy.
In our latest podcast, we break down the “Diffusion Strategy” defining 2026.
3 Key Takeaways:
- China and the “Global South” are trying to leapfrog: While the West debates regulation, emerging economies are treating AI as essential infrastructure.
- China has set a goal for 70% AI diffusion by 2027.
- The UAE has mandated AI literacy in public schools from K-12.
- Rwanda is using AI to quadruple its healthcare workforce.
- The Rise of the “Agentic Self”: We aren’t just using chatbots anymore; we are employing agents. Entrepreneur Steven Bartlett revealed he has established a “Head of Experimentation and Failure” to use AI to disrupt his own business before competitors do. Musician will.i.am argued that in an age of predictive machines, humans must cultivate their “agentic self” to handle the predictable, while remaining unpredictable themselves.
- Rewiring the Core: Uber’s CEO Dara Khosrowshahi noted the difference between an “AI veneer” and a fundamental rewire. It’s no longer about summarising meetings; it’s about autonomous agents resolving customer issues without scripts.
The Global Advisors Perspective: Don’t wait for AGI. The current generation of models is sufficient to drive massive value today. The winners will be those who control their “sovereign capabilities” – embedding their tacit knowledge into models they own.
Read our original perspective here – https://with.ga/w1bd5
Listen to the full breakdown here – https://with.ga/2vg0z
Strategy Tools
PODCAST: Effective Transfer Pricing
Our Spotify podcast discusses how to get transfer pricing right.
We discuss effective transfer pricing within organizations, highlighting the prevalent challenges and proposing solutions. The core issue is that poorly implemented internal pricing leads to suboptimal economic decisions, resource allocation problems, and interdepartmental conflict. The hosts advocate for market-based pricing over cost recovery, emphasizing the importance of clear price signals for efficient resource allocation and accurate decision-making. They stress the need for service level agreements, fair cost allocation, and a comprehensive process to manage the political and emotional aspects of internal pricing, ultimately aiming for improved organizational performance and profitability. The podcast includes case studies illustrating successful implementations and the authors’ expertise in this field.
Read more from the original article.
Fast Facts
Fast Fact: Great returns aren’t enough
Key insights
It’s not enough to just have great returns – top-line growth is just as critical.
In fact, S&P 500 investors rewarded high-growth companies more than high-ROIC companies over the past decade.
While the distinction was less clear on the JSE, what is clear is that getting a balance of growth and returns is critical.
Strong and consistent ROIC or RONA performers provide investors with a steady flow of discounted cash flows – without growth effectively a fixed-income instrument.
Improvements in ROIC through margin improvements, efficiencies and working-capital optimisation provide point-in-time uplifts to share price.
Top-line growth presents a compounding mechanism – ROIC (and improvements) are compounded each year leading to on-going increases in share price.
However, without acceptable levels of ROIC, the benefits of compounding will be subdued and share price appreciation will be depressed – and when ROIC is below WACC value will be destroyed.
Maintaining high levels of growth is not as sustainable as maintaining high levels of ROIC – while both typically decline as industries mature, growth is usually more affected.
Getting the right balance between ROIC and growth is critical to optimising shareholder value.
Selected News
Quote: Nate B. Jones – On “Second Brains”
“For the first time in human history, we have access to systems that do not just passively store information, but actively work against that information we give it while we sleep and do other things-systems that can classify, route, summarize, surface, or nudge.” – Nate B. Jones – On “Second Brains”
Context of the Quote
This striking observation comes from Nate B. Jones in his video Why 2026 Is the Year to Build a Second Brain (And Why You NEED One), where he argues that human brains were never designed for storage but for thinking.1 Jones highlights the cognitive tax of forcing memory onto our minds, which leads to forgotten details in relationships and missed opportunities.1 Traditional systems demand effort at inopportune moments-like tagging notes during a meeting or drive-forcing users to handle classification, routing, and organisation in real time.1
Jones contrasts this with AI-powered second brains: frictionless systems where capturing a thought takes seconds, after which AI classifiers and routers automatically sort it into buckets like people, projects, ideas, or tasks-without user intervention.1 These systems include bouncers to filter junk, ensuring trust and preventing the ‘junk drawer’ effect that kills most note-taking apps.1 The result is an ‘AI loop’ that works tirelessly, extracting details, writing summaries, and maintaining a clean memory layer even when the user sleeps or focuses elsewhere.1
Who is Nate B. Jones?
Nate B. Jones is a prominent voice in AI strategy and productivity, running the YouTube channel AI News & Strategy Daily with over 122,000 subscribers.1 He produces content on leveraging AI for career enhancement, building no-code apps, and creating personal knowledge systems.4,5 Jones shares practical guides, such as his Bridge the Implementation Gap: Build Your AI Second Brain, which outlines step-by-step setups using tools like Notion, Obsidian, and Mem.3
His work targets knowledge workers and teams, addressing pitfalls like perfectionism and tool overload.3 In another video, How I Built a Second Brain with AI (The 4 Meta-Skills), he demonstrates offloading cognitive load through AI-driven reflection, identity debugging, and frameworks that enable clearer thinking and execution.2 Jones exemplifies rapid AI application, such as building a professional-looking travel app in ChatGPT in 25 minutes without code.4 His philosophy: AI second brains create compounding assets that reduce information chaos, boost decision-making, and free humans for deep work.3
Backstory of ‘Second Brains’
The concept of a second brain builds on decades of personal knowledge management (PKM). It gained traction with Tiago Forte, whose 2022 book Building a Second Brain popularised the CODE framework: Capture, Organise, Distil, Express. Forte’s system emphasises turning notes into actionable insights, but relies heavily on user-driven organisation-prone to failure due to taxonomy decisions at capture time.1
Pre-AI tools like Evernote and Roam Research introduced linking and search, yet still demanded active sorting.3 Jones evolves this into AI-native systems, where machine learning handles the heavy lifting: classifiers decide buckets, summarisers extract essence, and nudges surface relevance.1,3 This aligns with 2026’s projected AI maturity, making frictionless capture (under 5 seconds) viable and consistent.1
Leading Theorists in AI-Augmented Cognition
- Tiago Forte: Pioneer of modern second brains. His PARA method (Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives) structures knowledge for action. Forte stresses ‘progressive summarisation’ to distil notes, influencing AI adaptations like Jones’s sorters and extractors.3
- Andy Matuschak: Creator of ‘evergreen notes’ in tools like Roam. Advocates spaced repetition and networked thought, arguing brains excel at pattern-matching, not rote storage-echoed in Jones’s anti-junk-drawer bouncers.1
- Nick Milo: Obsidian evangelist, promotes ‘linking your thinking’ via bi-directional links. His work prefigures AI surfacing of connections across notes.3
- David Allen: GTD (Getting Things Done) founder. Introduced capture to zero cognitive load, but manual. AI second brains automate his ‘next actions’ routing.1
- Herbert Simon: Nobel economist on bounded rationality. Coined ‘satisficing’-his ideas underpin why AI classifiers beat human taxonomy, freeing mental bandwidth.1
These theorists converge on offloading storage to amplify thinking. Jones synthesises their insights with AI, creating systems that not only store but work-classifying, nudging, and evolving autonomously.1,2,3
References
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TpON5T-Sw4
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k6IznDODPA
3. https://www.natebjones.com/prompts-and-guides/products/second-brain
4. https://natesnewsletter.substack.com/p/i-built-a-10k-looking-ai-app-in-chatgpt
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhyxDdHuM0A
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Services
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We help clients to measurably improve strategic decision-making and the results they achieve through defining clearly prioritised choices, reducing uncertainty, winning hearts and minds and partnering to deliver.
Our difference is embodied in our team. Our values define us.
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14 years of quantitative and data science experience
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We hire and grow amazing people
Consultants join our firm based on a fit with our values, culture and vision. They believe in and are excited by our differentiated approach. They realise that working on our clients’ most important projects is a privilege. While the problems we solve are strategic to clients, consultants recognise that solutions primarily require hard work – rigorous and thorough analysis, partnering with client team members to overcome political and emotional obstacles, and a large investment in knowledge development and self-growth.
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