Horizon LabsHorizon Labs

Insights

Product, design, AI, and engineering perspectives from our team.

Enterprise AI Chatbots in 2026: Build vs Buy
4 Aug 2026

Enterprise AI Chatbots in 2026: Build vs Buy

Enterprise chatbots in 2026 aren't a simple build-vs-buy call — managed platforms like Google's Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform now handle session state, RAG and governance out of the box. We break down when buying wins, when custom builds win, and the mid-market sweet spot in between.

8 min readChris Kerr
DORA Metrics for Mid-Market Engineering Teams
3 Aug 2026

DORA Metrics for Mid-Market Engineering Teams

DORA metrics are the clearest read on engineering delivery performance, but most guidance is written for large platform teams. Here's how a 10-50 person engineering team can instrument DORA cheaply, benchmark realistically, and account for AI-assisted development shifting the baseline.

7 min readChris Kerr
AI Governance Framework for Australian Mid-Market Companies
2 Aug 2026

AI Governance Framework for Australian Mid-Market Companies

vendors_do_you_have_an_AI_governance_policy Q?

3 min readChris Kerr
ML Proof of Concept to Production: Why Most Stall
1 Aug 2026

ML Proof of Concept to Production: Why Most Stall

Most ML proof of concepts never reach production — not because the model is wrong, but because reproducibility, deployment, monitoring, evaluation, versioning, and lineage were never built. Here's why POCs stall and what a realistic path to production looks like.

6 min readChris Kerr
Legacy System Modernisation: A Phased Roadmap
30 July 2026

Legacy System Modernisation: A Phased Roadmap

Legacy system modernisation doesn't have to mean choosing between a risky big-bang rewrite and years of technical debt. This guide sets out a phased, strangler-fig roadmap with funding gates, risk controls, and how AI-assisted code understanding changes the economics of the assessment phase.

6 min readChris Kerr
MLOps Consulting: What Australian Mid-Market Teams Actually Need
29 July 2026

MLOps Consulting: What Australian Mid-Market Teams Actually Need

Enterprise MLOps advice rarely fits a mid-market team running a handful of models with a small data team. Here's what a right-sized MLOps consulting engagement covers — minimum viable stack, build-vs-buy tooling, team shape, and a maturity model.

7 min readChris Kerr
AI Security Review: Threat Modelling LLM Apps Before Launch
28 July 2026

AI Security Review: Threat Modelling LLM Apps Before Launch

A practical, pre-launch framework for threat modelling LLM applications — prompt injection, tool-use data exfiltration, RAG poisoning, and tenant isolation — mapped to OWASP's LLM Top 10 and Australian privacy obligations.

9 min readChris Kerr
Agentic AI vs RPA: Workflow Automation for Professional Services
27 July 2026

Agentic AI vs RPA: Workflow Automation for Professional Services

RPA breaks the moment a contract, ledger discrepancy, or compliance document doesn't fit the script. Agentic AI handles the judgment-heavy, exception-prone work in between — with human approval gates and audit trails built in, not bolted on.

8 min readChris Kerr
Application Modernisation in Australia: The Complete 2025 Guide
16 July 2026

Application Modernisation in Australia: The Complete 2025 Guide

A practical guide to application modernisation for Australian engineering leaders — covering patterns like strangler fig and re-architecture, architecture maturity trade-offs, and Australian-specific context including the Essential Eight and Hosting Certification Framework.

6 min readChris Kerr