Editorial policy

Mission and audience

The Agent Brief is an independent publication about AI agents for small and midsize businesses. Our audience is owners, operators, practice managers, and small teams without an AI department — people who have to choose a tool, budget for it, and answer for the result.

We publish explainers, cost analyses, buying guides, security guidance, and industry playbooks. We do not try to cover every product or every headline. We try to make a small number of decisions easier and more defensible, with enough context that a reader can see how we reached a conclusion.

What we publish

Every page falls into one of four categories: a definition or explainer, a cost or ROI analysis, a comparison or buying guide, or a practical playbook for a specific industry. Each is written for an operator, not for an engineer, and each is edited before publication.

We do not republish press releases, rewrite a vendor's blog post, or publish a page solely because a product is launching. If we cannot add analysis, context, or verification, we do not publish.

Sourcing standards

Primary sources first

We start with the original document: the survey report, the regulatory filing, the academic paper, or the vendor's own technical documentation. When we cite a statistic, the link goes to the most direct public source we can find, not to a press summary of it. If the primary source is paywalled or unavailable, we say so and describe what we could verify.

Every statistic carries a date

Adoption rates, prices, and forecasts change. Each figure we publish is tied to the month and year it was measured or checked, and product prices carry the date we last confirmed them. We do not present an old number as if it were current, and we remove figures we can no longer support.

State what a number measures

A percentage is meaningless without its denominator. For every statistic, we aim to state who was studied, how many were studied, where they were located, how the data was collected, and whether the result is self-reported or independently measured. Where a source reports an average, we distinguish it from a median when the difference matters.

Forecast is not the same as measurement

A prediction about 2030 is a model of the future. A survey result is a snapshot of what a defined group reported. We label forecasts as forecasts, and we do not use a projection to describe something that has already happened. Vendor claims are presented as vendor claims, even when the vendor is well known.

No invented sources

We do not fabricate studies, quotes, testimonials, or first-hand testing. If a claim cannot be traced to a source we can name, it does not appear in a guide. When our own judgment fills a gap, we say that it is judgment rather than evidence.

How we use AI tools

AI tools are part of our workflow, within limits. We use them to organize research notes, outline a draft, summarize long documents for internal review, and copy edit for grammar and clarity. These uses save time on work that a person still checks.

We do not use AI tools to invent facts, quotes, sources, statistics, or first-hand testing. We do not generate screenshots, product results, or customer stories and present them as real. We do not publish a recommendation that no person has reviewed, and we do not use AI to impersonate a named individual.

Human review comes before publication. An editor reads every page, checks each statistic against its source, verifies quotes against their original context, and confirms product claims against current documentation. AI tools are never credited as authors. If a model helps draft a paragraph, the responsibility for that paragraph is still ours.

This policy is deliberate. AI can make research faster, but it cannot verify what it has not seen. The checks that make a page trustworthy are human checks, and they stay that way.

Advertising separation

Display advertising on this site is served by Google AdSense. Ads are labeled “Advertisement” and are visually separated from editorial content. We do not sell ads directly, and we do not know which advertisers will appear on a given page.

Advertisers have no influence on editorial content, rankings, or recommendations. No advertiser reviews a page before publication, and no payment can buy a mention, a placement, or a favorable conclusion. Editorial decisions are made without reference to advertising revenue.

We do not publish sponsored articles or paid placements. If that ever changes, the content will be labeled as sponsored at the top of the page and kept separate from our independent guides.

Affiliate disclosure

At present, The Agent Brief uses no affiliate links. If we add them, the disclosure will appear clearly above the link, before a reader clicks, and will name the relationship. A commission would never determine whether a product is included or how it is ranked; if a guide contains both affiliate and non-affiliate links, we will say so.

Corrections policy

We correct errors. A report should include the page address, the sentence or figure in question, and any source that supports the correction. We verify the claim against the original source before changing the page.

For a substantive correction — a wrong figure, a misattributed quote, an outdated price, or a product capability described incorrectly — we fix the text and add a dated note explaining what changed. For minor fixes, such as a typo, formatting, or a broken link, we correct the page without a note.

Correction reviews are prioritized by severity. Verification can take time. We do not remove accurate content because a vendor or subject objects to it. We will correct inaccuracies regardless of who points them out.

Review cadence and last-updated dates

Guides are reviewed at least once every twelve months, and sooner when pricing, regulation, or a key source changes. The “Updated” date on a page reflects a substantive review, not a cosmetic edit or a change to the page template. Legal and policy pages are reviewed at least annually.

If a page may be out of date, we update it or add a note rather than leave a stale claim standing.