Signal Half-Life Decay

Signal Half-Life Decay treats every trend alert as perishable inventory with a measurable shelf life. A cultural spike surfaced by Exploding Topics, a competitor page edit caught by Visualping, or a thought-leader interview surfaced through Recordal all lose client value at different rates, and agencies that store signals without dating them end up pitching stale observations as fresh insight. The framework asks delivery teams to stamp each signal with an expiry window at capture, then route anything past that window into archive rather than client decks. MIT Technology Review and Snowflake research found fewer than half of agent-generated insights lead to meaningful action, which is what happens when undated signal volume outruns decision capacity. A practical test: if a signal cannot be tied to a client decision inside its half-life, it was monitoring theater, not intelligence.