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Frontline workers get crunchy treat from Chester’s Jamaica on Heroes’ Day
Latest News, ...
Frontline workers get crunchy treat from Chester’s Jamaica on Heroes’ Day
October 19 06:45 PM
Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) chain Chester’s Jamaica treated over 100 essential workers across the island to a special surprise lunch Monday to comm...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
Latest News, ...
Fi Wi Land: Beyond the duppy stories, discover the value of Jamaica’s bats
October 19 06:32 PM
Often misunderstood and surrounded by folklore, bats are among nature’s hardest-working environmental protectors, helping to control insect population...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer", "breaking-news":"Push Notifications"}
Portmore Council honours 13 at Heroes Day ceremony
Latest News, ...
Portmore Council honours 13 at Heroes Day ceremony
October 19 05:06 PM
ST CATHERINE, Jamaica -- Six individuals, two companies and five staff members of the Portmore Municipal Council were honoured Monday at the annual He...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
Bongo Herman glad to be awarded national honour ‘when I’m alive’
Entertainment, ...
Bongo Herman glad to be awarded national honour ‘when I’m alive’
October 19 04:47 PM
Veteran Jamaican percussionist Bongo Herman has expressed that he is happy to receive a national honour while he's still alive. Born Herman Constantin...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
‘I never dreamt of this’: Vegas revels in national honour
Entertainment, ...
‘I never dreamt of this’: Vegas revels in national honour
October 19 04:38 PM
Entertainer Mr Vegas, real name Clifford Roy Smith, has expressed being humbled by the national honour, the Order of Distinction in the rank of Office...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer", "breaking-news":"Push Notifications"}
Proud moment for Barnswells as husband and wife conferred with national award
Latest News, ...
Proud moment for Barnswells as husband and wife conferred with national award
October 19 04:28 PM
It was a historic and proud moment for the Barnswell family from Clarendon, when the husband and wife team of Councillor Scean Barnswell and Danielle ...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
Duane collects OJ on behalf of dad Derrick
Latest News, ...
Duane collects OJ on behalf of dad Derrick
October 19 04:22 PM
All but one of the six Jamaicans who were presented with the nation’s fifth highest honour, the Order of Jamaica (OJ), at the 2026 Ceremony of Investi...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
Hurricane Melissa ‘heroes’ honoured in St James
Latest News, ...
Hurricane Melissa ‘heroes’ honoured in St James
October 19 04:22 PM
ST JAMES, Jamaica — The St James Municipal Corporation honoured several individuals on Monday for their roles in helping others during the passage of ...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
❮ ❯

Peta-Gaye Hardy

What is your AI actually costing you? — three ways it is priced now, why the bill creeps, and a two-line test for whether it is paying back
Business, Latest News
What is your AI actually costing you? — three ways it is priced now, why the bill creeps, and a two-line test for whether it is paying back
Peta-Gaye Hardy, Founder, PGH Consulting, LLC 
October 16, 2026
Microsoft is spending the next month running webinars for business customers on controlling AI costs and proving that Copilot agents pay for themselve...
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Claude just moved into Google Sheets — what it does to your model, the one switch to leave on, and the first job worth an hour
Business, Latest News
Claude just moved into Google Sheets — what it does to your model, the one switch to leave on, and the first job worth an hour
On 6 October Anthropic put Claude inside Google Sheets, Docs and Slides as a beta for every paid Claude plan. It reads the file you have open and only that file, it writes formulas and builds models on the sheet in front of you, and by default it asks before it changes anything. For the many businesses here that run on Google Workspace, this is the most useful tool launch since this column began, and the most important setting is the one you should never switch off.
Peta-Gaye Hardy, Founder, PGH Consulting, LLC 
October 9, 2026
This column started in June with ChatGPT arriving in Google Sheets. Nineteen weeks later the other large AI company has done the same thing, with more...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
Would you hire an AI that never clocks off?
Business, Latest News
Would you hire an AI that never clocks off?
OpenAI’s new 'Dots' work around the clock on their own computer, and here is what a business should and should not hand one
Peta-Gaye Hardy, Founder, PGH Consulting, LLC 
October 2, 2026
OpenAI held its developer conference on September 29 and the announcement that matters to a business owner is not a model. It is a colleague. OpenAI c...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
Would you let an AI read your bank account?
Business, Latest News
Would you let an AI read your bank account?
Claude is testing it, ChatGPT already does it, and here is what to decide before it reaches you
Peta-Gaye Hardy, Founder, PGH Consulting, LLC 
September 25, 2026
On 14 September a website that tracks unreleased app features published screenshots of a new section inside Claude’s iPhone app. It is labelled Money,...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
Is there any truth to the AI doom talk?
Business, Latest News
Is there any truth to the AI doom talk?
The people building it just asked for a slowdown, and what your business should do with that
Peta-Gaye Hardy, Founder, PGH Consulting, LLC 
September 18, 2026
Dario Amodei runs Anthropic, the company behind Claude, which this column has used in more weeks than any other tool. On 12 September he published an ...
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Two new models in one week — how to test them on your own work before you switch
Business, Latest News
Two new models in one week — how to test them on your own work before you switch
Anthropic shipped Claude Fable 5.1 on 1 September and OpenAI followed with GPT-6 Astra two days later. Both are described by their makers as the most capable models they have built. Neither claim tells you whether your month-end gets better. Here is a two-hour test that does, and a note on what each launch actually gives a business paying US$20 a month, which is less than the headlines suggest.
Peta-Gaye Hardy, Founder, PGH Consulting, LLC 
September 11, 2026
Two of the three AI tools this column has covered since June got new flagship models within two days of each other. Anthropic released Claude Fable 5....
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Fix it before you speed it up — choosing the first thing to automate, and the data work that comes first
Business, Latest News
Fix it before you speed it up — choosing the first thing to automate, and the data work that comes first
Every week this column shows what AI can do for a finance team. This week, the order of operations. Most small businesses automate the part customers can see and leave the part the money runs through untouched, which is roughly backwards. Here is how to choose the first process, and the unglamorous data work that decides whether any of it holds.
Peta-Gaye Hardy, Founder, PGH Consulting, LLC 
September 4, 2026
Last week, Barbados’s Senior Minister Kerrie Symmonds put some numbers to something anyone who works with small businesses in this region already susp...
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Your free AI now has advertisers — what that changes, and what your business should actually be paying for
Business, Latest News
Your free AI now has advertisers — what that changes, and what your business should actually be paying for
Every week this column shows what AI can do for a finance team. This week, what it costs. ChatGPT is now carrying advertising in a growing list of countries, on the free plan and on the cheapest paid one. Jamaica is not on that list yet, but the direction is settled, and it is a good moment to work out which plan your business is actually on
Peta-Gaye Hardy, Founder, PGH Consulting, LLC 
August 28, 2026
Earlier this year OpenAI said ChatGPT had passed 900 million weekly users, and that more than 50 million people paid for a consumer subscription. The ...
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The invisible watermark — AI-written text can now be identified, and what that means for your business
Business, Latest News
The invisible watermark — AI-written text can now be identified, and what that means for your business
Every week this column shows what AI can do for a finance team. This week, a change announced just days ago: Claude now embeds an invisible watermark in the text it generates, which means AI-assisted work is becoming identifiable — and the businesses with nothing to adjust are the ones that never pretended otherwise.
Peta-Gaye Hardy, Founder, PGH Consulting, LLC 
August 14, 2026
On Tuesday, 11 August, Anthropic confirmed a change this column has been expecting for a while: text generated by its newest Claude models now carries...
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{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
The risks of AI — hallucinations, data privacy, and what should never go into a chatbot
Business, Latest News
The risks of AI — hallucinations, data privacy, and what should never go into a chatbot
Every week this column shows what AI can do for a finance team. This week, the other side of the ledger: how these tools fail, where your data goes when you press send, and the short list of things that should never be pasted into a chat window.
Peta-Gaye Hardy, Founder, PGH Consulting, LLC 
August 7, 2026
For nine weeks this column has argued that AI belongs in the Jamaican finance office: forecasting cash flow, cleaning a year of receipts, turning spre...
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ChatGPT, Claude, or Copilot — which AI assistant does your small finance team actually need?
Business, Latest News
ChatGPT, Claude, or Copilot — which AI assistant does your small finance team actually need?
Every week this column shows what AI can do for a finance team. This week it answers the question readers ask most, usually with a price page already open: which one should a small Jamaican office actually pay for?
Peta-Gaye Hardy, Founder, PGH Consulting, LLC 
July 24, 2026
By now somebody has told you that your business needs AI. Perhaps it was your accountant, who swears by ChatGPT. Perhaps your IT support company, whic...
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Your first AI agent — teach Microsoft 365 Copilot to draft the month-end commentary your way
Business, Latest News
Your first AI agent — teach Microsoft 365 Copilot to draft the month-end commentary your way
Every month you type the same long instructions into a chat window and attach the same files. This week you write those instructions once, attach the files once, and hand the whole routine to an agent your team can share.
Peta-Gaye Hardy, Founder, PGH Consulting, LLC 
July 17, 2026
Somewhere on your computer there is a note holding your best prompt. You know the one: the paragraph you paste into an AI chat at month-end, refined o...
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From Excel to slides in minutes — Claude now works inside your spreadsheet and your deck
Business, Latest News
From Excel to slides in minutes — Claude now works inside your spreadsheet and your deck
The books close on Tuesday; the board deck used to take until Friday. Claude now works inside both Excel and PowerPoint — and because the two add-ins share one conversation, this month’s numbers flow from the workbook into the deck without a single copy-paste.
Peta-Gaye Hardy, Founder, PGH Consulting, LLC 
July 10, 2026
Every finance team has the ritual. The books close, the Excel pack is updated, and then someone loses a day to the deck: copy the chart, paste it into...
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Clearing the drawer — how Claude’s desktop app turns a year of receipts into clean books in an afternoon
Business, Latest News
Clearing the drawer — how Claude’s desktop app turns a year of receipts into clean books in an afternoon
The drawer of crumpled receipts is a Jamaican small-business rite of passage. Point Claude’s new desktop app at a folder of hundreds of receipts and bank exports, describe the mess in plain English, and it reads, sorts, and tidies the whole pile in place — so you keep the judgement and lose the lost weekend.
Peta-Gaye Hardy, Founder, PGH Consulting, LLC 
July 3, 2026
Every small-business owner knows the feeling. It is the week before the accountant needs everything, and the year’s record-keeping is a drawer of crum...
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A dashboard in minutes — no analyst, no software, no wait
Business, Latest News
A dashboard in minutes — no analyst, no software, no wait
Interactive dashboards used to mean weeks of work and expensive software. Now a single plain-English prompt — to Claude, Copilot, or ChatGPT — turns a static sales spreadsheet into something a manager can actually click through and explore.
Peta-Gaye Hardy, Founder, PGH Consulting, LLC 
June 19, 2026
Picture your weekly Monday management meeting. The numbers exist, buried in a spreadsheet with 11 tabs that only one person knows how to navigate. So ...
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Cash flow forecasting in minutes, not days — with Claude, even when the JMD/USD rate won’t sit still
Business, Latest News
Cash flow forecasting in minutes, not days — with Claude, even when the JMD/USD rate won’t sit still
It used to take days. Claude, the AI now built into Excel, builds a 13-week cash flow forecast and stress-tests it against every JMD/USD scenario in minutes — even for a one-person finance team
Peta-Gaye Hardy, Founder, PGH Consulting, LLC 
June 12, 2026
Ask any Jamaican importer what keeps them up at night and the answer is rarely sales. It is the gap between the day they pay their supplier in US doll...
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{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
ChatGPT just landed in Google Sheets — here’s why every Jamaican business owner should pay attention
Business, Columns, Latest News
ChatGPT just landed in Google Sheets — here’s why every Jamaican business owner should pay attention
A new spreadsheet-native AI tool turns the most-used business app on into a financial co-pilot. The catch? You don’t need to be a developer to use it
Peta-Gaye Hardy, Founder, PGH Consulting, LLC 
June 5, 2026
Most Jamaican finance teams I work with are not short on ideas. They are short on hours. A senior accountant spends Tuesday cleaning a messy export fr...
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Frontline workers get crunchy treat from Chester’s Jamaica on Heroes’ Day
Latest News, ...
Frontline workers get crunchy treat from Chester’s Jamaica on Heroes’ Day
October 19, 2026
Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) chain Chester’s Jamaica treated over 100 essential workers across the island to a special surprise lunch Monday to comm...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
Latest News, ...
Fi Wi Land: Beyond the duppy stories, discover the value of Jamaica’s bats
October 19, 2026
Often misunderstood and surrounded by folklore, bats are among nature’s hardest-working environmental protectors, helping to control insect population...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer", "breaking-news":"Push Notifications"}
Portmore Council honours 13 at Heroes Day ceremony
Latest News, ...
Portmore Council honours 13 at Heroes Day ceremony
October 19, 2026
ST CATHERINE, Jamaica -- Six individuals, two companies and five staff members of the Portmore Municipal Council were honoured Monday at the annual He...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
Bongo Herman glad to be awarded national honour ‘when I’m alive’
Entertainment, ...
Bongo Herman glad to be awarded national honour ‘when I’m alive’
October 19, 2026
Veteran Jamaican percussionist Bongo Herman has expressed that he is happy to receive a national honour while he's still alive. Born Herman Constantin...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer"}
‘I never dreamt of this’: Vegas revels in national honour
Entertainment, ...
‘I never dreamt of this’: Vegas revels in national honour
October 19, 2026
Entertainer Mr Vegas, real name Clifford Roy Smith, has expressed being humbled by the national honour, the Order of Distinction in the rank of Office...
{"jamaica-observer":"Jamaica Observer", "breaking-news":"Push Notifications"}

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