AI Strategy & Digital Transformation
Analysis, methods and insights to drive your digital transformation and master AI.
Cahier MCVA n°1 — Mesurer la citabilité IA après mai 2026
Google I/O 2026 a confirmé un basculement structurant : la recherche n'est plus seulement un classement de pages, elle devient un environnement de réponse, de comparaison et d'action. La visibilité d'une entreprise ne tient plus seulement à sa position organique, mais à sa citabilité par les systèmes génératifs. Méthode, mesure, position de cabinet.
Jérôme Deshaie · 25 mai 2026 · 30 min
Who Really Owns Your Digital Tool?
The word 'owner' slips easily into a sales brochure. What it actually means, concretely, for the code, data and configuration of a tool — and why a poorly documented in-house CMS can lock you in just as much as a closed SaaS.
8 min
Buy or subscribe: the 5-criteria decision framework
Rent or own: the decision is made tool by tool, never across the board. Here are the five criteria I use in the Diagnostic d'Usage IA to decide, along with the cases where subscribing remains the right choice.
8 min
Custom-Built Solution: What Does It Look Like Under the Hood?
FiscalDoc fits in a few hundred lines of code: a lightweight interface, an engine chosen according to data sensitivity, a simple database, an optional conversational agent. This architecture generalizes to many custom-built projects — until integrations, multiple users, or compliance requirements make it grow.
8 min
How an AI Chooses Its Sources — and How to Become One of Them
Retrieval and query fan-out: two mechanisms, documented by Google since May 2026, decide what a generated answer retains. What gets content into the selection — sharp answers, authority built over time, entity coherence — and what lies beyond anyone's control.
8 min
The Real Cost of Software Subscriptions for a Swiss SME
The subscription bill is only the visible part of an SME's software cost. Four items appear nowhere: teams adapting to the tools' limitations, price hikes absorbed without question, captive data, and exit costs never budgeted for. A one-hour inventory method, and what to do with the total.
8 min
The cost of custom software in the age of AI-augmented development
Pre-2023 cost benchmarks no longer hold, but not everything has gotten cheaper. Three tiers for reasoning without a made-up number, and what remains expensive despite code assistants: integration, migration, quality, maintenance.
8 min
What does AI already know about your company?
Wikidata, Zefix, professional directories and your own site: four sources that models cross-reference to know who you are before deciding whether to cite you. How to check this identity record in an hour, and correct it at the source — with mcva.ch as a documented example.
8 min
When keeping your SaaS is the right call
I sell custom-built software, and I will often tell you to keep your SaaS. Here are the cases where the subscription stays the rational choice — real network effect, compliance carried by the vendor, complexity beyond a small team — and the false argument I hear most.
8 min
Hosting in Switzerland: What Actually Changes
A Swiss host changes the applicable law, brand image, and recourse in the event of a dispute — but not the jurisdiction of the vendor whose software runs on top of it. What changes, what it doesn't solve, the extra cost in orders of magnitude, and the extreme case of having no hosting at all.
9 min
Migrating your data out of a SaaS without breaking anything
Migrating cleanly out of a SaaS comes down to five methodical moves: check what the export actually gives you, rebuild the target data model, run the old and new systems in parallel, switch over on a quiet day, and negotiate reversibility before signing the next contract.
9 min
FADP: Where does your SME's data actually live?
Every online tool your SME uses is a processor, and almost no one keeps track of them. What the FADP expects – register, processors, transfers abroad –, the extraterritorial question answered without drama, and an inventory that fits into a single morning.
8 min
What should a Swiss SME do about AI in 2026?
The entry point of MCVA's guiding thread. Two questions frame everything a Swiss SME must decide about AI in 2026: being cited and chosen when demand is expressed, and working with AI without multiplying dependencies. The method, the order of operations, and the detailed notes.
8 min
What a document portal would change for a fiduciary firm
Collecting documents, follow-ups, filing, closings: four tasks that punctuate the fiduciary profession. Here, in a forward-looking voice, is what an owned document portal would change — architecture, professional secrecy, FADP — and what it would not fix.
8 min
Redesigning your website in Valais: the 2026 guide
Redesigning a site in Valais in 2026 hinges on five measurable requirements: AI citability, performance, accessibility, multilingualism, FADP compliance. And on a migration that can't be compressed — it's what protects what your old site built.
9 min
FiscalDoc: replacing CHF 1,400/year in SaaS with a local AI
A real case, documented end to end: FiscalDoc, a local application built in three evenings with a code assistant, replaces a tax document management subscription. Classification by an open model running on my own machine, zero subscriptions, zero data sent to a third party — and the honest limits of the demonstration.
9 min
SaaS or custom-built: renting or owning your tools in Switzerland
For fifteen years, the software subscription was the default choice for Swiss SMEs. Rising prices, sovereignty requirements and the falling cost of code are reopening the trade-off. My five-question framework for deciding what to rent and what to own.
9 min
What Skills Can't AI Replace? Six Answers
AI removes tasks, not jobs — and that distinction changes everything for employment and training. Six skills structurally resist this wave. An analysis from Valais, where the vineyard already illustrates the mechanics.
9 min
Digital Agency in Valais: How to Choose in 2026
Freelancers, regional agencies, Romandy-based firms, augmented models: no family of providers wins as a matter of principle. A Valais practitioner's sorting grid — one who is himself a player in the game, and says so.
8 min
SEO Consultant in French-Speaking Switzerland: What Changes in May 2026?
SEO consulting didn't become obsolete on May 15, 2026 — it became stricter. What a serious consultant still does, what AI citability measurement adds to the engagement, and how to sort providers in French-speaking Switzerland.
8 min
Choosing your AI advisor in Switzerland: four criteria
The Swiss AI consulting market has grown denser without becoming more disciplined. Four verifiable criteria for sorting through it — a measurement logic, FADP built into scoping, technological independence, measured citability. Including for evaluating me.
8 min
AI Chatbot: Can It Really Serve Your Customers?
The word chatbot covers three systems that have almost nothing in common: scripted decision trees, RAG systems grounded in your documents, agents that take action. What separates a chatbot that serves your customers from one that drives them away is decided at the scoping stage.
9 min
Perplexity or Google: where your customers search in 2026
Your customers haven't left Google for Perplexity: they alternate between several search regimes depending on their need. What each environment reveals about your business, and how to measure without picking the wrong terrain.
8 min
AI Personalization: Without Platform Dependency
AI personalization no longer necessarily requires a large marketing suite. First-party data, owned tooling, Swiss discretion: what I take away for calibrating personalization that improves the experience without driving customers away.
9 min
AI project done right: the three patterns that hold up
A well-built AI project is recognizable before the first line of code is written: a pattern suited to the need, carefully prepared data ahead of model choice, a staged progression. The five costliest mistakes — and how to avoid them.
9 min
Generative AI: what's changing for Swiss B2B
Your future B2B clients are preparing their decisions in ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google's AI Mode: discovery, evaluation, comparison. What this shift changes, sector by sector, for a Swiss company.
9 min
Claude Code: a field report on two real projects
The redesign of mcva.ch and FiscalDoc were both built with Claude Code. A field report without the marketing gloss: the real gains, the moments where the tool wastes time, and the discipline that changes the outcome.
7 min
AI and Recruitment in Switzerland: What the FADP Allows in 2026
Sorting applications with AI is legal in Switzerland — and seriously regulated. What the FADP requires, what the European AI Act adds, and the five safeguards that separate a defensible practice from dangerous automation.
9 min
Prototyping with AI: what vibe coding is really worth
Describing an idea in natural language and getting a prototype within days: vibe coding delivers on that promise. Keeping it profitable requires a simple rule — validate with the prototype, rebuild for production.
8 min
Training your team on AI: where to start?
Rolling out AI tool licenses without support produces three predictable effects: token usage, free tools used on the sly, false conclusions about relevance. The kind of upskilling that sticks follows three phases — and starts with knowing who you're training.
9 min
Writing with AI: Can This Content Earn Authority?
Generative AI doesn't replace the writer: it shifts their value toward the brief, the review, and the expertise injected into the text. What earns authority in 2026, with or without assistance — and why editorial laziness now costs more than before.
8 min
AI and developers: who is still building, if AI writes the code?
Generative AI writes functional code, fast. It doesn't design the architecture, doesn't check its own output, and carries no responsibility. The developer's value is shifting — and so is the brief a Swiss SME needs to write.
8 min
Automating your visuals with AI: brand, law, method
Generative models now produce visuals that are usable in a business setting. What remains essential: keeping a consistent brand, knowing where your data goes, and understanding what Swiss law says about a generated image. The full framework, without naming any tools.
9 min
Designing with AI without losing control of the design
Generative tools produce mockups and prototypes at unprecedented speed. They do not produce the understanding of needs that makes an interface right. Here's how to combine the two without losing control of the design.
8 min
E-commerce and AI: Are your products being cited?
Product search is partly shifting to ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Mode. What these environments read on a product page, the Swiss guardrails to respect, and the three trade-offs facing merchants in 2026.
8 min
AI and Responsible Digital: What Switzerland Can Deliver
Generative AI ranks among the most energy-intensive digital technologies — and most of what a user organization can actually control lies in its own choices. Five concrete levers, and three structural advantages of the Swiss context.
8 min
AI in Swiss healthcare: what a regulated sector allows
Healthcare is Switzerland's most regulated sector, yet AI is already running there in routine use: imaging, administration, clinical research. What this terrain demonstrates holds for any executive operating under regulatory constraint — the rule selects serious projects, it does not block them.
9 min
Structured data: what AI actually reads on your site
JSON-LD markup helps AI systems read your site, but it guarantees no citation whatsoever. The four schemas useful to a Swiss SME, the mistakes that cancel out the effort, and where markup fits within the whole project.
8 min
GEO vs SEO: is it really two different professions?
For two years, the market sold GEO as a discipline distinct from SEO. On May 15, 2026, Google folded generative fundamentals into search fundamentals. What remains: a higher bar, and a measurement.
8 min
AI visibility: does your SME appear in ChatGPT?
Ranking well on Google no longer means being cited by ChatGPT. What changed in May 2026, what stays the same, and the citability measurement to add to your visibility metrics.
8 min