Fores3

Labs

We don't just advise. We build, and we keep learning.

Labs is the studio's own workshop. Five products, each begun because a question refused to leave the room. Some are in the world. Some are still finding their shape. All of them teach us something we bring back to client work.

Index

A live table of the current work. Status is understated on purpose, pace matters more than announcements.

  1. 01Influde AI
  2. 02Fotospots
  3. 03Contentscore
  4. 04SearchBalloon
  5. 05Fores3 OS

Field notes

Five products, and what each one is teaching us.

Every Lab is here because we became genuinely interested in a problem. What follows is not a portfolio. It is a working notebook, open to anyone who wants to read it.

Lab 01

Growing

Since 2023

Influde AI

Publishing venture·influde.ai

Why it exists
Digital publishing had quietly become a job of maintenance, not writing. We wanted to see what would happen if the maintenance disappeared.
What we've learned
AI can carry most of the boring layer, the tagging, the formatting, the distribution, before it starts flattening the voice. The line moves faster than anyone admits.
Who it serves
Small editorial teams and independent publishers who still write everything themselves.
Where it is
In active use across a growing catalogue of titles. Revenue-positive, quietly.
Where it might go
An editor mode that argues back with the writer instead of agreeing with them.

Lab 02

Live

Since 2022

Fotospots

Community atlas·fotospots.com

Why it exists
The internet already knows where to eat. It does not really know where to look. We started collecting the second kind of place.
What we've learned
A slow, contributor-owned atlas can stay honest, but only if the product refuses to become a feed. Every decision we regret was a decision toward scroll.
Who it serves
Photographers, walkers and travellers looking for a place, not content about a place.
Where it is
Live in several regions, curated by a small circle of contributors.
Where it might go
Local editions run by local photographers, with their own editorial voice.

Lab 03

Beta

Since 2024

Contentscore

AI readers for writing·contentscore.ai

Why it exists
Most writing tools measure the wrong things. Length. Grammar. Keyword density. Nothing about whether the thing is actually worth reading.
What we've learned
You can teach a model to read like an editor, for clarity, honesty, rhythm, but the score is only useful if the writer trusts where it came from.
Who it serves
Editors, marketers and long-form writers who care how their work reads out loud.
Where it is
In closed beta with a handful of teams. Feedback loop is short and honest.
Where it might go
Opening the readers up, so a team can design its own house voice as a rubric.

Lab 04

Building

Since 2025

SearchBalloon

Search intelligence

Why it exists
Search became scroll. But there is still a smaller audience that reads, and a smaller class of writers trying to reach them. They needed different instruments.
What we've learned
The interesting signal is almost never the top result. It is the shape of what is missing around it.
Who it serves
Strategists, researchers and founders who use search to think, not to shop.
Where it is
In development. Used internally on every client engagement to sharpen positioning.
Where it might go
A first, deliberately narrow release for a small group of practitioners.

Lab 05

Private

Since 2024

Fores3 OS

Internal studio system

Why it exists
A studio should run on the same tools it recommends to others. We stopped stitching apps together and started building the surface we actually wanted.
What we've learned
Most of a small studio's work, clients, thinking, knowledge, invoices, can live in one calm place if you are willing to build it yourself.
Who it serves
The studio, first. Eventually, other studios that recognise themselves in how we work.
Where it is
Runs the studio end-to-end. Never marketed, never demoed.
Where it might go
A quiet, invitation-only preview once it can survive being used by someone who did not build it.
Twisted beech branches reach into a luminous green canopy.
Looking up · original photograph by Robin Visser

The loop

Every product teaches something. Every lesson improves the studio.

We build our own products for one reason: it is the only honest way to keep learning. Every Lab puts us on the receiving end of the decisions we usually recommend, the trade-offs, the small regrets, the things that only reveal themselves at scale.

What we learn here flows directly into client work. What we learn with clients finds its way back into these products. It is a loop, and every turn of it makes the next collaboration a little sharper, a little kinder, a little more useful.

That is the whole argument for Labs. Not a portfolio. A practice.

Working on a problem adjacent to one of these, or one we haven't found yet? Say hello.

hello@fores3.comOr, the long way around →