Do this: When the next price-increase notice lands, do not forward it to your accountant. Paste it into a free AI tool with the prompt below and you have a reply that asks for a number, a date, and an exit.
PASTE THIS
You are a procurement lead for a small business. I am pasting a vendor's price-increase notice. Write a four-sentence reply that: (1) says how long we have been a customer; (2) offers a twelve-month price hold in exchange for a two-year commitment; (3) asks for the exact new price and the date it starts; (4) asks what leaving costs. Then list the two answers we must get in writing first. Here is the notice:
You'll get: A send-ready email and the two written answers to hold out for. A vendor who will not put a price and a date in writing is telling you the increase is about their quarter, not your contract.
The three lines to add before you accept any increase
Send these three lines as a reply to a price-increase notice, and ask them to return it with the blanks filled in.
Vendors sign this more often than you would guess. The first two lines cost them nothing this quarter. The third line is the one that tells you whether your price is a price or a habit.
Most price increases are not costs. They are the absence of a line in your contract. The vendor who can raise your price without so much as an email is the vendor who wrote the terms, and the fix costs one reply today, sent before you agree to anything.
Micron posted $54.2 billion in quarterly revenue and told buyers that memory supply will get worse before it gets better, The Register reports. Huawei expects to pass on an average $200 per-unit cost rise, and Samsung added $100 to most of its Galaxy S26 line.
So what: gather this year's laptop, phone and server purchases into one list and book the refresh this month, before the next quote lands.
California just banned the robot boss
California signed the first state law that stops software alone from firing or disciplining workers, per CNBC, reversing an earlier veto. So what: list every tool that schedules, scores, or ranks your staff, and ask each vendor this week for a written compliance statement you can keep with the contract.
The Bank of England just repriced your borrowing
The Bank of England's governor warned this week that the AI boom could trigger market shocks, the BBC reports, days after arguing that regulating AI is not the right place to start, also reported by the BBC. For a small firm the message is about the cost of money, not safety. So what: if you plan to finance equipment or a rollout this year, fix the rate and the term this month.
Agents reached the enterprise this week
Barclays is expanding its use of Anthropic's Claude in an efficiency push, per Anthropic. OpenAI and Meta shipped rival consumer agents days apart, The Verge reports, and Airbnb's chief executive argues agents need their own operating system before they earn a subscription, per TechCrunch. So what: hand your messiest recurring task to a free consumer agent this week and see whether it finishes.
This week's question: our main software vendor blames component costs for a price increase. Is that real? Sometimes, yes, and memory prices genuinely are climbing this quarter. But nobody has to adjudicate it. Ask for the new price, the date it starts, and what leaving costs. A vendor quoting a real cost returns those three answers within a day. A vendor quoting its own quarter will not put them in writing at all, and at that point the increase is a choice rather than a cost.
Which price increase reached your business first this year?
A. Software subscriptions
B. Hardware and machines
C. Freight and supplies
D. Staff costs and wages
Reply with one letter — results next issue.
Which chip designer agreed to lend Anthropic up to $42 billion to lease its chips?
Answer tomorrow — and no, we are not printing it here.
YESTERDAY'S ANSWER
Which company is now paying around 100 publishers for how much their content contributes to its AI answers?
Google. The Information reported the pilot, with payments varying widely by publisher, which is the first real price signal for the content that feeds AI search results.
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