CEO & Co-founder, Mostly Serious
Jarad leads strategy across the Mostly Serious family of teams with a focus on making complex digital decisions feel approachable.
He spends a lot of time thinking about how AI, content, and long-term partnerships show up in the real work clients depend on.
31 articles
September 14, 2026
As we think about handing more work off to AI agents, we need a framework for understanding both the type of work we're delegating and the consequences when an agent gets something wrong.
The one-way versus two-way door distinction gives us a useful mental model for what kind of work agents can do. It helps us determine the level of autonomy they should have.
4 mins
August 19, 2026
If you want to experience what work will feel like in the future, Grok Bot is the most accessible way to do it.
It gets the chat-like interface, agent orchestration, and connections right. The models and privacy questions are why I'm staying on Codex.
7 mins
July 28, 2026
What OpenAI's Hugging Face incident tells companies about AI workflows that can act without human approval.
A practical review for deciding which AI actions should remain independent, require approval, or be removed.
7 mins
July 13, 2026
ChatGPT Work is bringing agentic workflows to a much broader audience, but the transition from using a chatbot to managing agents is more complicated than the labs make it look.
Organizations need to help people learn how to assign work, provide context and tools, evaluate outcomes, and know when to step in.
4 mins
May 25, 2026
Mostly Serious tested AI-assisted workflows in Vei, our internal test environment for realistic business systems. In 32 of 36 completed runs, at least one field we checked was still wrong after better information arrived.
The issue was not always that the AI misunderstood the situation. Often, the AI made the summary better while failing to update the fields another person would rely on later.
6 mins
April 24, 2026
A website can keep loading, submitting forms, and technically doing its job while quietly introducing people to an outdated version of the business behind it.
Our long-term relationship with OMB shows what happens when a website foundation and the team behind it keep adapting as the business grows into new divisions, new audiences, and new offerings.
6 mins
April 14, 2026
The AI industry wraps simple concepts in complex language. Agents, agentic workflows, and multi-agent orchestration can sound like they require a computer science degree. They don't.
A practical look at how folder-based AI systems handle real organizational work, from marketing content to client onboarding, and why the barrier to entry is lower than the jargon suggests.
8 mins
February 24, 2026
AI made it easy to produce content at scale. It also made it easy to produce content nobody wants to read. The companies winning in search and AI-driven discovery are the ones publishing content with real perspective, not the ones generating hundreds of keyword-stuffed articles a month.
7 mins
February 17, 2026
Most AI training ends with excited teams and productivity gains. But a few weeks in, people are spending their AI time re-explaining context. Skills are portable, shareable instructions that teach AI how to handle specific work. They change that pattern and help training compound across an organization.
4 mins
February 5, 2026
This is a guide for the people who get a little nervous when they need to open Terminal (or don't know what it is). I'll try to break down the complexity, simplify the buzzwords, and allow you to build something quite incredible within the next hour.
14 mins
February 2, 2026
AI runs my week. I started this as an experiment to test the capabilities of the latest models over a year ago. Since then, it has become a core part of my daily workflow. This post outlines that system, how it works, how it helps me, and where it still fails to do the innately human stuff.
6 mins
January 27, 2026
Why AI pilots stall in 'pilot purgatory' and why failure is often the signal that teams are learning fast enough to make the next model jump count.
A practical look at the 30-day Implementation Launchpad approach for mapping workflows, shipping focused pilots, and building AI agents that actually work.
8 mins
January 25, 2026
At CES, it was obvious how wide the gap still is between knowing about AI and actually running it inside everyday work. Even advanced audiences can describe the tools but very few are operating with autonomous agents or the workflows that make them worth it.
The companies pulling ahead are the ones that keep failing fast, redesigning team structures, and shrinking the human layer to make space for always-on execution partners. That shift is already here, and most organizations are not ready for it.
9 mins
December 4, 2025
Anthropic built an AI-powered interview tool and used it to talk to 1,250 professionals about how they actually feel about AI at work. They spoke with the general workforce, scientists, and creatives.
The research validates a lot of what we're seeing. People tend to like AI, they use it frequently, and they're still uneasy about it.
5 mins
December 1, 2025
With the launch of this new website, we're bringing our three divisions, Mostly Serious, Habitat, and MSAI, into one space. It's important to understand how this all came together.
Fifteen years ago, Mostly Serious started in a spare bedroom building websites. Along the way, we built a team and culture that actually works, and that foundation led to Habitat and MSAI. Three divisions, one team, solving connected problems.
2 mins
November 26, 2025
As AI tools become part of everyday work, the model you choose has a huge impact on quality, speed, and how “smart” the assistant feels. That might be 4o, o3, 4.5, o3-pro, or whatever comes next.
This article shares how we teach teams to think about model choice in AI Quest Foundations, including simple personas for today’s ChatGPT models and why learning to pick the right one is a skill that will only matter more over time.
4 mins
November 5, 2025
Most companies try to bolt generative AI onto existing workflows instead of reimagining how work should run when AI is in the loop, and that choice quietly determines who gets real ROI from these tools.
Drawing on data from Wharton’s 2025 AI Adoption Report and lessons from more than 50 organizations in our AI Quest program, this piece explains why smaller, more flexible teams are seeing outsized gains and how any company can start redesigning work for generative AI.
4 mins
September 26, 2025
OpenAI Pulse is a new ChatGPT experience that proactively does research and delivers personalized updates based on your ongoing conversations, feedback, and connected apps like your calendar, instead of waiting for you to ask.
For teams thinking seriously about AI, Pulse is an early glimpse of a future where off‑the‑shelf assistants predict what you need next, replace fragile custom workflows, and quietly meet you where you already work.
2 mins
February 4, 2025
Neglected websites quietly turn into security liabilities, performance bottlenecks, and lost revenue as outdated CMS versions, vulnerable plugins, and poor builds pile up, and marketing teams are often stuck waiting on overloaded IT or agencies to clean up the mess.
This article unpacks the real costs of website neglect, explains why proactive maintenance and our Craft CMS Health Check are smarter long-term investments, and outlines how a structured audit can stabilize your site, protect customer trust, and create a foundation for growth.
10 mins
November 21, 2024
Creativity is what makes brands feel truly distinct, but every bold idea asks leaders to accept real risk instead of staying safely on the well-worn path.
This article explores how to evaluate the return on creative risk, learn from your customers, iterate your way toward bolder ideas, and test and refine brand moves so you can stand out without tanking trust or results.
9 mins
October 29, 2024
This Dot One 2024 workshop recaps how to move beyond AI hype and start using tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and NotebookLM as part of your everyday work, from learning new topics faster to researching clients and preparing for sales conversations.
Use this article as the interactive companion to the talk: you’ll find links to the tools we used, copy‑and‑pasteable prompts, and a practical FAQ you can share with teammates who are just getting started with AI.
8 mins
August 1, 2024
Many companies are so focused on debating whether AI will evolve toward human-level intelligence that they overlook the tangible, immediate benefits generative AI offers today.
This article explores why businesses should use AI now, from concrete efficiency and quality gains to early adoption advantages, and outlines a practical three-part approach without waiting for an uncertain future.
11 mins
July 26, 2024
Craft Commerce 5 introduces multi-store management, inventory locations, tiered pricing, and product versioning, features that give businesses more control and flexibility without sacrificing ease of use.
The new first-party Stripe plugin syncs products, subscriptions, customers, and invoices directly with Craft Commerce, offering a cost-effective migration path and enhanced customization options for businesses seeking world-class ecommerce without compromising on content or user experience.
8 mins
July 17, 2024
We started 2024 with an experiment: intentionally opening ourselves up to new types of work and evolving our processes to better accomplish client goals.
After six months of running our "YFL" (yess-er, faster, lighter) approach and MS Doubtfire framework, we reflect on what worked, including Critical Problem Meetings and improved client collaboration, and what we learned about staying agile while maintaining quality.
11 mins
November 18, 2022
In B2B marketing, the most effective content doesn’t shout for attention, it quietly answers the exact questions your buyers are already asking, long before they ever talk to sales.
This guide walks through a four-step expert-content process you can use to identify key decision-makers, uncover their real pain points, interview your internal experts, and turn those insights into evergreen content that converts across channels.
9 mins
November 15, 2022
Mostly Serious has been leveraging AI and machine learning tools for years, from marketing automation to our custom DeepL translation solution. This year, we're making significant investments in AI, bringing ChatGPT Plus to every team member, building additional AI solutions, and enhancing our internal operations.
In this transparent look at our AI strategy, CEO Jarad Johnson shares our history with AI tools, how we're currently utilizing ChatGPT across teams, our approach to balancing AI with human creativity, and our commitment to responsible adoption that protects brands while delivering real value.
14 mins
October 5, 2021
WordPress may be the most popular content management system on the web, but for teams who care about flexible content, performance, and long-term maintainability, Craft CMS often delivers a better day-to-day experience.
This article compares Craft CMS and WordPress across eight practical categories, from content editing and SEO to plugins, ecommerce, and pricing, and explains why we usually recommend Craft CMS and Craft Commerce for client projects.
9 mins
June 1, 2021
When you need the flexibility of a custom content-first website and the power of a proven ecommerce platform, combining Craft CMS and Shopify can be a smart way to get the best of both worlds, if you understand the trade‑offs.
This article walks through the pros and cons of a blended Craft + Shopify approach, compares lightweight Buy Button embeds to full-store integrations, and shares how we help clients choose the right platform mix for their goals, budget, and internal team.
9 mins
January 25, 2018
When 417 Magazine asked Mostly Serious to help overhaul its family of magazine websites, the project quickly grew into a full rethinking of how their digital products serve readers and internal teams.
This behind-the-scenes look walks through how we rebuilt our discovery process, collaborated shoulder-to-shoulder with 417's team, and engineered a flexible, component-based platform that now powers thousands of pages across three publications.
8 mins
July 4, 2017
When you’re planning a new website, it can be tempting to reach for the quickest path, a plug-and-play site builder or an off-the-shelf template, without stopping to ask whether that approach can really support your goals.
This article outlines three clear signs you may be ready for a custom, ground-up website build that’s designed around your conversions, business objectives, and real customers instead of template constraints.
5 mins
March 12, 2017
If your website feels “good enough” but still isn’t pulling its weight, there are a handful of warning signs that usually mean it’s time for a thoughtful overhaul, not just a fresh hero line or new photos.
From low conversions and sluggish performance to outdated content and inflexible tools, this checklist walks through ten of the most common red flags we see when organizations are ready to turn their site into a true revenue-generating, customer-pleasing asset.
8 mins