Jeff MacDonaldCreative technologist & educator

I build AI systems that let humans do .

Agentic tools can run a whole workflow now. The interesting design problem is deciding where they should not: which moment belongs to a human, and what the machine owes them when it gets there. I built four products to answer it four ways.

See the workAbout Jeff

The work, and who decides

  1. 01Tamper Signalreads the verdict
  2. 02Paper Sessionwrites on paper
  3. 03Daily Reederapproves the queue
  4. 04Mixtapecloses the day
01

Four projects

02

The through-line

Every one of these is the same bet: an automated loop is only trustworthy if there is a specific, named place where it stops and a person is allowed to say no.

They differ in what that place is for. Tamper Signal hands you a verdict you can read in a second. Paper Session makes the machine wait while you think on paper. Daily Reeder asks before anything is kept. Mixtape makes you close the day rather than letting it roll over.

Building them taught me the same lesson four times. The hard part is never the model. It is the plumbing underneath a decision, and none of it is glamorous.

  • The receipt

    Proof that nothing changed between one stage and the next.

    Tamper Signal

  • The pause

    A loop that will genuinely wait, and not run on without you.

    Paper Session

  • The queue

    A gate into memory that needs a yes before anything is kept.

    Daily Reeder

  • The ledger

    Honest time, and a decision waiting at the end of the day.

    Mixtape

03

Who is building this

I am Director of Innovation & Technology at Movers+Shakers, where the agency itself is the client. Before that: Mekanism, and The Martin Agency's Maker Lab. I teach AI in strategic communication at VCU.

The longer version

  • I ask bigger questions than the tool suggests

    It shows up in the products: each one stops and asks me at the moment guessing would have been cheaper.

  • I ship the unglamorous part

    The signed receipt, the printer driver, the end-of-week ledger. The infrastructure that keeps a loop honest is never the demo.

  • I keep the human gate non-negotiable

    The vault is read-only by default. Scan-back lets my handwriting overrule the model. Nothing proceeds without approval.

04

Press

  • GlossyAI In CommerceOctober 2025
  • VCUVCU Alumni ArticleAugust 2025
  • BRXNDHow One Agency Leader Is Scaling AI from the InsideJuly 2025
  • The DrumAd industry foresees another publisher traffic hit as OpenAI's AI agent, Operator, arrivesJan 2025
All 38 mentions