Earned Autonomy / by David Reynolds

About this

Earned Autonomy is my working position on AI for the people who own, chair or invest in businesses. It comes from twenty years of building digital and data capability inside PE-backed groups, professional-services firms and B2B businesses, and from a year of running AI and automation in production rather than in pilots. It is written for the conversation I keep having with chief executives, owners and investors, which starts with AI and ends up being about the shape of the company, what the company owns, and what it costs to be wrong.

It is a working position, not a finished one. It carries a version number, a changelog, and a register of the claims that can be proved wrong. When the evidence moves, it moves.

I'm most useful inside a business, not beside it.

Contact is LinkedIn. There is no email address on this site by design.

How this was made

Every sentence here is mine to defend. AI helped me research, draft and argue against myself; it did not decide what I think, and it does not get a byline. Sources are cited so you can check them. The claims that can be proved wrong are listed with the date they can be proved wrong. When I change my mind, the changelog says so.

How much is being claimed

Every concept on this site carries a calibration mark beside its title. One block: shared ground, not claimed as insight. Two blocks: converging with others, credited and extended. Three blocks: distinctive, argued with confidence. The evidence page lists every concept by tier, the sources, and the open items still to be verified.

What changed

1.1 · September 2026

Structure rebuilt around three questions and twenty concepts, each readable at three depths. Seven frameworks named and drawn. The seat picker replaced by Where to start. Two register sentences on identity standards revised: they said the standards had not arrived, and one has (Microsoft's, April 2026). The vendor's side of the boundary added from Microsoft's 2026 transparency report. Gartner's 2026 survey added to Claimed vs banked. Sources revised 25 and 26 September.

1.0 · September 2026

First public version, built from the September 2026 working paper.

Take it with you

  • The paper as one page, and as PDF (A4 and Letter)
  • The seven frameworks as PNG and SVG, full and whiteboard versions
  • The agent register template (.md and .xlsx)
  • The three questions on one page (PDF)

No sign-up. Attribution appreciated.