Your 3-2-1 on AI — Issue 03

Launch in days, not months

Issue 03 · Week of 10 August 2026

Your 3-2-1 on AI

Built for our community

Tailored to only include AI systems and tips which are in alignment with UBT principles — keeping the community ahead of the curve with AI implementation.

This week in AI

Three things you need to know

If you use Manus, you have a decision to make before 23 August

Manus — the AI agent tool a lot of people use to build their own systems — announced yesterday that it’s separating from Meta and returning to independence. Chinese regulators blocked Meta’s $2 billion acquisition back in April and ordered it unwound. Ownership is passing back to its original Chinese investors, with Tencent reported to be in line for the largest stake.

There’s an immediate deadline attached. For affected accounts, anything created after 29 December 2025 will be deleted between 23 and 24 August. The backup window closes at 00:59 UK time on 23 August. A restore portal opens on the 25th, with roughly two days of no access in between.

Our recommendation: Inpello is advising clients to plan a move away from Manus and onto an alternative. This isn’t a criticism of the product — it’s a good tool. It’s about where control sits. A platform whose ownership can be redirected by a government mid-contract, and which is deleting customer data at a fortnight’s notice as a result, is a shaky foundation for anything your business genuinely depends on. Back up before the 23rd whatever you decide. If you’d like help choosing a replacement and moving across cleanly, just reply — we’re walking clients through exactly this over the next fortnight.

A price rise that isn’t happening

Anthropic confirmed this week that Claude Sonnet 5’s introductory rate is now permanent. The increase pencilled in for 1 September has been cancelled — it stays at roughly a third less than the price it was heading for. Anyone already running it sees no change to their invoices.

Why it matters: if you had an AI project costed on the old numbers, the sums have improved. Quietly, this is the second time this year that the price of doing something useful with AI has fallen rather than risen — which is the opposite of how most business software behaves.

AI-assisted shopping has tripled in a year

Shopping searches run through AI assistants are up 200% year on year. People increasingly ask an assistant to find and compare products rather than scrolling a results page themselves.

Why it matters: if you sell anything, the buyer reading your product page may not be a person. Clear specifications, honest pricing and current stock information are becoming a discovery advantage, not just good housekeeping.

Put it to work

Two tips worth stealing

You’re probably using a bigger model than the job needs

Claude lets you choose which model answers, and most people set it once and never think about it again. On a Pro subscription that choice stretches or burns your usage limits. The moment AI is plugged into your business systems and billed by usage, it’s the single biggest lever on the bill — there’s a fivefold gap between top and bottom.

Haiku — $1 / $5 per million

Fast and cheap. Sorting and tagging enquiries, pulling figures out of invoices or forms, checking a list against a rule, rough first drafts.

Sonnet 5 — $2 / $10 per million

The everyday workhorse, and after this week the best value in the range. Writing, research, summarising, analysis, most day-to-day business work.

Opus 5 — $5 / $25 per million

The heavy lifter. Complex multi-step work, difficult code, long documents, and anything where getting it wrong is expensive.

Rule of thumb: start on Sonnet. Drop to Haiku for anything repetitive and high volume. Move up to Opus only when you’ve tried Sonnet and it genuinely wasn’t good enough.

Write your product pages for the machine as well as the customer

Paste one of your product or service pages into Claude and ask: “If you were an AI assistant helping someone choose a supplier, what would you struggle to answer from this page?” The gaps it lists — dimensions, lead times, what’s included, who it suits — are the same gaps costing you human enquiries.

The Claude guide

Design a brochure without opening a design tool

Claude Design gives you a canvas alongside the chat. You describe what you want, it builds it, and you refine it by talking or by dragging things around. Where it earns its keep for a business like yours: one-page website layouts, brochures, catalogue pages and slide decks.

Step 1 Give it your brand first — logo, colours, fonts, a couple of pieces you like. Everything after that comes out looking like you.

Step 2 Say what you’re making, who it’s for and what matters most. “A four-page product catalogue for specifiers, price list on the back.”

Step 3 Start simple, then layer. Get the structure right before asking for polish — it responds far better to one change at a time than to a long list.

Step 4 Click straight onto the bit you want changed and comment on it, rather than describing where it is. Much faster than explaining.

Moving off Manus, or just want to know what you’re exposed to?

We’re helping clients through this one over the next fortnight — working out what they’re running, what’s at risk, and what to move onto. Tell us what you’ve got and we’ll come back with a straight answer.

Request a scope & cost →

Your 3-2-1 on AI is curated for our community — only AI systems and tips that align with UBT principles make it in.
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