Tom Is Live
February 2026 field notes from the experiment, preserved as written. This page does not certify Tom's current production state.
Archive note: This page stopped being written six weeks into the experiment. Its latest operational note was July 2026; current production state is not certified here. The site's public pulse is Brian's log. The stats dashboard promised below never shipped; what that teaches about dashboards became its own essay.
Tom went live January 5th, 2026 across three family trade businesses — ovens, antennas, and electrical. Six weeks in. Still standing. Sharon still hasn't reached for the hammer.
The Timeline
Under the hood
Tom is a voice AI agent built on ElevenLabs Conversational AI, connected to a real phone number via Twilio. The prompt engineering took 150+ versions across 6 weeks of live calls. No SaaS subscription. No monthly platform fee. Built from scratch by a tradie who missed one too many calls while elbow-deep in a switchboard. Full build guide is free — start here.
Dec 2025
Book Written
Fish and I wrote "Build Your Fish" over Christmas. 13 disaster stories. 50+ use cases.
Jan 5, 2026
🔴 TOM GOES LIVE
First real calls. Three family trade businesses — ovens, antennas, electrical.
This Week
Fixing & Learning
Monitoring calls, fixing edge cases, updating prompts. The usual chaos.
Next
Public Stats Dashboard
Working on a live call stats page. Real numbers — accuracy rate, booking conversions, disasters avoided.
Latest Update
Three small hiccups, zero major disasters. Sharon hasn't reached for the hammer.
Last updated: February 18, 2026
Why Share This Live?
Because everyone talks about AI in theory. Here's what it actually looks like in practice.
We'll share real numbers. Real mistakes. Real fixes.
If Tom fucks up spectacularly, you'll know about it here first.
Share Your Fish
Building something? Got a disaster story? We want to hear it.
Best stories get featured. Disasters especially welcome.