Last week I sat down with the COO and general counsel of a hedge fund that's about to start AI training. We were talking governance, and I opened with a picture.

Right now, every analyst who uses Claude describes the firm in their own words. How you invest, what you care about, what a good idea looks like. Twenty-two people, twenty-two descriptions.

But your fundraising decks present a different picture: One firm, one description of the company and its investment strategy. Signed off by the CIO.

The disconnect lives in Claude. That's ok if the team rarely uses Claude for real work.

But that's rarely the case these days.

Companies and firms need consistent context. So the COO pulled a draft together from approved materials. Nothing was being created just for Claude. Instead, we were repurposing existing content. Easy peasy.

Then the COO asked the question I think every leader should ask.

"Our strategy is specific. Medium to long-term horizon, emphasis on valuation. Won't this make the AI look at everything through that one lens?"

Fair worry. The general counsel's answer was practical: start with the context, see it in practice, and widen it if it feels too narrow.

I added two things.

First, you control where the brief goes. In Claude, projects let you attach different files to different work. Post-investment monitoring gets the strategy file. Open-ended research may not need it.

Second, when you want the lens challenged, ask for the challenge. A devil's advocate prompt, or a bull and bear pair, will argue against the house view on request.

Context is everything with AI. At a firm, it should be the same context.

Here's how I'd build it:

1. Write the one-pager you'd hand a senior new hire. What the firm does, how it decides, what it values, who owns what. Pull from documents that are already approved (pitch deck, website, policies), so nobody is inventing positioning from scratch.

2. Get the sign-off. CEO or CIO. Save it as a plain text or Markdown file in one shared folder, and ask everyone to attach it to their AI projects.

3. Let each person add their own layer. Claude's personal instructions hold roughly 400 words. Use them for name, role, responsibilities, and one line: "See the firm brief for strategy."

4. Test it. Ask the same question with and without the brief attached. If the answer gets too narrow, try adding "argue the opposite case" before you rewrite the brief.

If you run a smaller shop, this still applies. Three people describing your business three ways to AI produces three slightly different businesses.

What would your one-pager say? I'm curious how long it takes you to write the first draft.

Alex