TAG Weekly Roundup #9

Editor's Note

This week’s newsletter explores how MCP tackles digital workers 1,200 daily interruptions. Microsoft launches new AI voice models and you need to be bored!

📻News

MCP Could End Digital Workers’ 1,200 Daily Interruptions

A Harvard Business Review study found that the average digital worker flips between applications and websites nearly 1,200 times per day. Additionally, the University of California found it takes about 23 minutes to fully regain focus after a single interruption. 

Anthropic's MCP, addresses this by connecting AI coding assistants directly to developers' daily tools — project trackers, Slack, documentation — thereby eliminating context switching.

Riot Games connected around 1,000 Slack apps, and engineers saw:

• A 27% reduction in time needed to test and iterate code,

• 22% faster time to identify new bugs and a

• 24% increase in feature launch rate

If digital workers face 1,200 daily interruptions,  how many do BA’s encounter?

Likely fewer as we work in structured workflows e.g. stakeholder interviews and requirements documentation. However, even modest interruption levels —dealing with emails / slacks, that “quick” internal meeting —  significantly impact analytical thinking and output generation. Read more

🧰Tools

Microsoft MAI-1-Preview & MAI-Voice-1 Models

Microsoft launched its first in-house AI models, signalling reduced dependence on OpenAI. MAI-Voice-1 is a speech generation model, with the ability to generate a full minute of audio in under a second on a single GPU. 

Artificial Societies - AI-Powered Audience Simulation

This Y Combinator start-up raised $5.3 million in seed funding to: 

• Run rapid experiments with AI personas, to

• Test messages, content & ideas

• Model real-world audiences

• Forecast outcomes in minutes, and 

• Drive insights 30% more accurate than standard LLMs.

Founded by graduates who started by simulating a network of 1,000 investors, they then used it to raise a pre-seed and get into YC. 

Persona creation starts with data collected at an individual level from multiple channels. Their proprietary behavioural analysis engine identifies patterns in preferences, motivations, and decision triggers.

A strong use case is product discovery. 

Test feature concepts with simulated user groups before investing in development. Instead of waiting weeks for traditional user research, you can validate product ideas with AI personas that mirror your actual customer segments, getting feedback on everything from new features to messaging approaches.

📽️Video

You Need to be Bored

Arthur Brooks from Harvard reveals why constant connectivity undermines analytical thinking.

When we're bored and not actively thinking about anything specific, our brains switch over to what's called the default mode network — essentially our mind's screensaver that kicks in during mental downtime.

The relevance to Business Analysts? Our best strategic insights emerge during these mental quiet moments. 

As Brooks explains, when your mind wanders during boredom, you naturally drift toward big questions about meaning and purpose. These uncomfortable existential questions turn out to be incredibly important and valuable for our work.

But smartphones kill this crucial thinking space. Every time you feel slightly bored and grab your phone, you're making it harder to find meaning and develop those breakthrough insights that define excellent analysis work.

Practical Applications:

1. Requirements Analysis: Schedule phone-free thinking time to process complex stakeholder needs

2. Solution Design: Allow mental downtime for creative problem-solving approaches

3. Strategic Planning: Create space for big-picture thinking about process improvements

Claude’s Browser Revolution Arrives

The Department of Product video includes Claude's new Chrome extension. Other insights from the video include Google's impressive Gemini 2.5 Flash image editing model update (also known as "Nano Banana"), which can understand simple hand drawings and make edits — potentially useful for sketching process prototypes. 

It also covers Anderson Horowitz's latest Generative AI Consumer Apps Report, showing ChatGPT still leads mobile usage but Gemini is closing the gap with nearly half as many monthly active users.

Till next week.