Practical AI integration & strategy
Identify credible use cases, trade-offs and governance needs for small businesses, organizations and cross-functional teams. Choose where AI adds value—and where it does not.
Explore AI integration advisory ↗
Robert Lavigne / RLavigne42 ·
Brantford, Ontario, Canada
AI consulting & agentic systems built for real work.
The Digital Grapevine is an independent generative AI solutions and R&D practice led by Robert Lavigne. We help organizations move beyond one-off prompts and content generation into practical AI integration, agentic workflows, engineering harnesses and interactive systems built around context, continuity and measurable outcomes.
Remote-first collaboration from Brantford, Ontario, supporting teams across Canada and beyond.
TDGv / SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
COHERENCE FIRST ●
THE
CONTEXT
ENGINE
01 / Memory
02 / Orchestration
03 / Verification
04 / Continuity
OUTPUT IS ABUNDANT. COHERENCE IS DESIGNED.
Agentic workflow design & AI prototyping
33 Amazon titles in the supplied author catalog
106 generative artwork stories indexed
Our point of view
Operating in the Context Economy.
When text, images and model responses become easy to produce, the durable advantage is not more output. It is the architecture surrounding that output: what a system remembers, which sources it trusts, how it uses tools, when it asks for review, and how it maintains continuity from one session to the next.
Our work treats context as part of the operating system for AI. Memory, framing, rules, orchestration, traces and evaluation can turn a promising model demo into a process that people can inspect, maintain and improve. Explore the Context Economy research overview for the longer argument.
AI strategy · Architecture · Applied development
Practical AI services for real operational problems.
From first use-case discovery to a transparent proof of concept, we focus on workflows people can understand and outcomes worth measuring. Each capability links to the detailed services framework.
Generative AI prototypes & concept development
Turn a business idea into a working proof of concept, test assumptions early and validate interaction patterns before investing in a larger implementation.
Explore rapid AI prototyping ↗Agentic AI workflow design
Connect tools, models and defined roles through explicit execution steps, recoverable state and purposeful review points instead of an opaque chain of prompts.
Explore agent orchestration ↗AI-assisted development & harness engineering
Structure agent-enabled projects with discrete skills, execution loops, pseudocode discipline, inspectable traces, bounded tools and repeatable testing.
Explore agent harness engineering ↗Interactive narrative & simulation systems
Use persistent storyworlds, role-based simulations and scenario-driven interactions for learning, creative IP and practical AI evaluation.
Explore narrative systems and R&D ↗Synthetic presence & digital identity
Explore AI-assisted voice, avatar and multimedia production pipelines that help teams communicate at scale while retaining editorial oversight and consistency.
Explore synthetic media capabilities ↗How we work
From useful question to inspectable system.
The model is one component. The surrounding design determines whether people can trust, supervise and sustain the workflow.
01 / Frame
Identify a real job, decision or bottleneck and define success.
02 / Prototype
Build the smallest useful tool or interactive workflow.
03 / Evaluate
Observe failure modes, decisions, traces and human checkpoints.
04 / Refine
Improve reliability, memory, governance and long-term continuity.
For technical examples, see our R&D lab and transparent AI evaluation work .
Books · Research · Practical guides
Ideas we publish. Systems we build.
Robert Lavigne’s publications connect critical thinking about AI with first-principles engineering, workplace learning, generative artwork and interactive narrative design. The dedicated library organizes the 33 titles supplied from the Amazon author storefront alongside curated digital writing.
Critical thinking & AI
The Validation Economy
The Validation Economy
When Being Right Feels Better Than Finding Out: AI, confirmation, belief and better judgment.
Explore The Validation Economy ↗
First principles
Learn Agentic AI with Lavigne
Learn Agentic AI with Lavigne
Skills, Loops, and Traces: a practical guide to building inspectable orchestrator agents.
Explore the agentic AI book ↗
Visual prompting
Learn DALL·E with Lavigne
Learn DALL·E with Lavigne
A visual-prompting book accompanied by a substantial generative artwork archive.
Explore Learn DALL·E and its companion ↗
Learning through narrative
SkillsTrek: Mission to Synergos
SkillsTrek: Mission to Synergos
Co-created with Trish Uhl: an illustrated journey into workforce AI integration.
Explore the SkillsTrek book ↗Explore the full Amazon and digital publications catalog
Search across book collections, Medium writing, interactive readers and related research projects.
Prefer Amazon? Visit Robert Lavigne’s Amazon Author Storefront to view available formats and current retailer information.
Research library · Medium · Generative artwork
An open archive of experiments and explanations.
The writing and artwork connect directly to the technical practice: how prompts are structured, how visual styles evolve, what agent orchestration needs to expose, and how fictional environments can become useful evaluation tools.
106 generative art stories
Browse the indexed Generative Artwork by Robert Lavigne collection: SydNay, The Lady and the Lake, DALL·E prompt studies, mosaic worlds, avatar experiments and visual storytelling.
Open the generative art gallery ↗ Medium Reading RoomCurated essays and serialized readings on The Validation Economy, the WEASEL Orchestrator Framework, RAG, context compression and practical AI engineering.
Read the Medium research collection ↗ Learn DALL·E companion collectionConnect the visual archive to the book’s themes of prompting, iteration, model comparisons, image styling and creative exploration.
Visit the Learn DALL·E companion ↗More of Robert’s original writing is also available through his Medium author profile (@RLavigne42) and Digital Revolution history series on The Digital Grapevine.
R&D / Partner projects / Evaluation
Research you can explore, not just claims you have to trust.
Applied projects turn architectural concepts into inspectable demonstrations. The Digital Grapevine’s collaboration with Owl’s Ledge connects workforce learning, AI orchestration, narrative systems and test/evaluation/ verification/validation (TEVV).
The Disconnected Frontier
Speculative worldbuilding and a text-game evaluation environment for testing LLM reasoning, state tracking, simulation and narrative continuity.
Explore Disconnected Frontier and TEVV ↗ SkillsTrek and Starship AgencyA collaborative, story-driven AI learning universe co-created with Trish Uhl, linking narrative design with adaptive learning workflows.
Explore the Owl’s Ledge SkillsTrek project ↗ WEASEL OrchestratorBuild an understanding of transparent agents through discrete skills, controlled loops, execution traces and reproducible design principles.
Explore the first-principles manual ↗
The person behind the practice
Robert Lavigne (@RLavigne42).
Founder of The Digital Grapevine, based in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.
Robert’s work spans software and digital strategy, collaborative media, business enablement, applied AI prototyping and agentic systems architecture. The practice grew from an early focus on Social Business into an emphasis on the systems that make modern AI useful, understandable and coherent.
Today that work extends from hands-on engineering and R&D to published books, articles and interactive storyworlds. Read Robert Lavigne’s background and practice history , or explore the complete 2026 website .
Frequently asked questions
Questions about working with The Digital Grapevine.
What does an agentic AI systems architect do?
Agentic architecture designs how AI models interact with tools, memory, rules, workflows and human reviewers. It focuses on making multi-step actions observable, bounded and useful in real operations rather than relying on unstructured prompts alone.
Does The Digital Grapevine help with AI strategy or actual prototypes?
Both. Engagements can begin with a use-case discussion and move into practical prototyping, workflow orchestration, integration guidance, harness design and evaluation. The goal is to validate a useful system before expanding it.
Do you only serve Brantford or Ontario organizations?
No. The Digital Grapevine is based in Brantford, Ontario and works remotely with clients and collaborators beyond the local region. Project suitability depends on the problem, scope and type of collaboration.
How do the books, Medium articles and artwork relate to the consultancy?
The publications document the questions, methods and creative experiments behind the practice. They cover agent engineering, critical thinking, workplace AI integration, prompt iteration and narrative evaluation. The publications library connects them by topic and collection.
Start with the work, not the hype
Have a workflow to improve or an AI idea to test? Let’s make it concrete.
Tell Robert what you’re trying to accomplish, how the process works today and what a useful first result would look like. A short project brief is enough to begin the conversation.