The Cloud, Augmented.

Putting intelligence where it belongs.

Going Downstream

The smarts have been stuck upstream, in someone else's data center. I bring them down to you—running on your own hardware, portable and durable and yours to keep.

I build the layer other people build on.

I'm Nicholas (Nick) Cottrell. I treat brand, product, and the systems underneath as one thing, not three departments. I've done it across three technology waves—peer-to-peer, spatial computing, and AI—for companies such as BitTorrent, Fandom, AltspaceVR (Microsoft), and Mavenlink (Kantata). My patented interaction patterns have been cited by Apple and ByteDance.

Short version: I make stuff, and I'm picky about how it holds up. The work I'm proudest of always started as a problem nobody had a clean way to describe yet. Here's some of it.

Want to dig deeper? Check out A Bridge in the Sky, an open-source generative storytelling project. Or take a look at my research program. Help me make this ‘AI governance’ stuff legible. 

Local Agents, Actually.

An agent stack that runs where you are instead of where the servers are. You talk, it listens, it answers—all local. Real enough to use, rough enough to be interesting.

Keep in touch.

I want to help creators have more control and reduce their dependence on central platforms.