Article · Greg Howell · October 23, 2026
Context is everything: prompt, documents, connectors
AI models are stateless. They remember nothing. Every time you send a message, the whole conversation is sent again, which is why long chats use more tokens. The model only knows what is in front of it.
“These models have no memory. They only know what you give them in that prompt, and the richer the context, the better the result.”
That makes context the real lever. Ask a plumber’s AI “What should I charge to replace a water heater in Plymouth?” and you get a generic $1,200 to $3,500. Add last year’s price sheet and invoices and you get a specific number based on his costs and markup. Connect it to his supplier’s parts catalog and the answer gets richer again. Same model, three levels of context. Before asking whether you need a better AI, ask what you’ve given it to work with.