Common Fortune · A Mickai journal
What it costs a council, a public body or a regulated SME to keep its data and AI under its own control, and what it costs not to: procurement, vendor lock-in and the price of a data breach.
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· 6 min read
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Mickai LTD, a British company building a Sovereign Intelligence Operating System. Written by Micky Irons.
About the journal and teamThe journal
Direct answers to the cost questions councils, public bodies and regulated SMEs ask about keeping data and AI under their own control. Browse by topic.
Explainer
MCP is becoming the standard way an AI assistant plugs into outside tools and data. For a council or regulated SME, an ungoverned MCP connection is also a new, largely invisible route for data to leave the building unaudited.
Data & Economics
A commercial AI agent sat inside parts of an Australian government health portal for weeks before its maker noticed, and the government did not find out for almost three months after that. What the incident actually cost and risked, and the honest limits of what on-premises control would have changed.
Profile
Mickarle Wagstaff-Irons - Micky Irons, full name Mickarle Sean Junior Wagstaff-Irons, is the founder of Mickai, a British company building a Sovereign Intelligence Operating System. Here is the short version.
Explainer
Free AI tools are not zero-cost, they redistribute the cost. Here is where compute, data, time and lock-in actually land when the price reads £0.
Explainer
The sixty-plus free Trust Agent workbooks are staying free. An honest look at the premium tier being planned alongside them, and what is not decided yet.
Explainer
A cloud AI subscription and a self-hosted model are not priced the same way, so comparing the sticker prices alone tells you almost nothing about which one actually costs more.
Data & Economics
Most PI insurers do not yet exclude AI-assisted work outright. Some now ask specific questions at renewal, and vague answers get priced accordingly.
Data & Economics
The headline penalties are large and the deadline has moved twice. What a UK business actually needs to budget for, and whether the Act applies to it at all.
Data & Economics
The government's survey measures breach costs for businesses and charities, not public bodies, and not detection time. What the figures do and do not tell you.
Data & Economics
Heavily, on the figures available: government procurement data and Computer Weekly's analysis of public-sector spending. Here is what the concentration actually looks like, and why it has become a sovereignty question rather than just a procurement one.
Explainer
Strip away the policy language and digital sovereignty is a set of ordinary economic trade-offs: who bears the risk, who captures the value, and who is locked in.
Guidance
The honest framework for the cost question, without the vague reassurance or the vague fear. What actually drives the price, and how to weigh it against the cost of not doing it.
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A short reading path for anyone preparing a business case, writing a procurement requirement or pricing the risk of a supplier relationship. Each piece answers its question directly, then explains.
The framework
The market
The risk
The buying decision
Who writes Common Fortune
Common Fortune is published by Mickai LTD, a British company building a Sovereign Intelligence Operating System, and written by Micky Irons. It covers the economics of the whole category and treats Mickai as one option among serious alternatives. Where Mickai is discussed, the relationship is stated on the page, and the outside sources the articles cite are listed in one place.
