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Implementing AI agents in daily operations

6 min read

From: aidotengineer

Implementing AI agents involves a fundamental shift in how companies operate, moving beyond AI as a mere tool to AI as a core primitive of existence [03:26:00]. This transformation redefines team building, workflow design, and even hiring roles [06:04:00].

AI-Enhanced vs. AI-Native Companies

There’s a significant distinction between an “AI-enhanced” business and an “agent-native” or “AI-native” company [02:06:00], [02:26:00].

  • AI-Enhanced Business

    • Uses AI intermittently for tasks like chatting or document generation [05:11:00].
    • Aids with efficiency goals but could still function without AI, albeit less efficiently [05:19:00], [05:22:00].
    • Comparable to a car with driver assist features [05:30:00].

  • Agent-Native/AI-Native Company

    • Built from the ground up with AI agents at the core, augmenting human productivity and intelligence [03:01:00], [03:05:00].
    • Integrates AI into the foundation of its product, operations, and culture [03:17:00], [03:20:00], [03:22:00].
    • AI is the “engine” moving products, operations, and culture forward, relied upon by everyone to do their job [03:34:00], [03:40:00].
    • If AI agents were removed, employees would be unable to accomplish as much, facing mundane and unfulfilling tasks [03:57:00], [04:01:00], [04:04:00].
    • Without AI, these companies would not move as fast, costs would rise, and productivity would decline [04:40:00], [04:44:00].
    • Products would feel outdated, unintelligent, and less useful, losing competitive edge [04:50:00], [05:04:00].
    • Comparable to a car on autopilot, with humans directing it [05:36:00], [05:38:00].
    • Every employee focuses on higher-level navigation and company success, while routine tasks and micro-decisions are offloaded to agents [05:44:00].

What Makes a Company Agent-Native?

Several defining attributes characterize an agent-native company, though these are still early days [06:24:00], [06:26:00]:

AI at the Core of Everything

AI is not confined to one team, feature, or aspect of culture; it’s pervasive across product, customer support, and operations [06:33:00], [06:36:00], [06:41:00], [06:43:00]. Each department is expected to have agents performing routine and key daily work, with integrated agent interfaces for departmental handoffs [06:48:00], [06:55:00], [06:57:00]. Removing these agents would cause a “human scramble” and significant loss of productivity [07:10:00].

Humans as Conductors

In an AI-native company, people transition from being cogs in a machine to conductors or orchestrators [07:43:00], [07:48:00].

  • This necessitates a different hiring profile and company organizational chart [08:03:00].
  • Organizations become flatter and leaner, with middle management layers shrinking as intelligent systems handle coordination and execution [08:09:00], [08:14:00], [08:16:00].
  • For instance, after morning product discussions, detailed requirements can be generated, and agents can begin building prototypes, drafting messaging, and documentation within a day [08:23:00], [08:26:00], [08:31:00], [08:35:00].
  • The organizational chart evolves from a pyramid to a network of humans and AI [08:55:00], [08:57:00], [09:00:00].

Experimentation and Iterative Culture

While common in tech startups, this principle finds its “ultimate realization” in an AI-native company [09:07:00], [09:10:00], [09:12:00]. With AI handling routine work and assisting with prototypes, humans can truly focus on what matters [09:32:00], [09:34:00]. The self-learning capability of agents further compounds this, as they learn and improve over time, becoming a “superpower” [09:44:00], [09:46:00], [09:57:00], [10:03:00].

The Agent-Native Typical Workday

A typical workday in an agent-native company involves new elements like overseeing AI’s actions and output [10:40:00], [10:42:00], [10:51:00], [10:53:00], [10:55:00].

Rethinking Hiring and Onboarding

The shift to an AI-native model fundamentally alters the hiring process and the types of skills sought [14:03:00], [14:06:00].

Conclusion

The integration of AI agents represents a profound shift, deeply embedding them into every aspect of business [17:42:00], [17:44:00], [18:06:00]. This transition, likened to the industrial revolution or the advent of the car industry, calls for rethinking roles, skills, culture, and operations [06:11:00], [17:55:00], [18:00:00], [18:11:00], [18:13:00].

Instead of merely using AI as a tool, businesses are being built around AI as a core primitive [18:22:00], [18:26:00]. This shift, while potentially causing friction, offers significant opportunities and an “unfair advantage” if embraced [18:41:00], [18:43:00], [18:45:00]. For instance, a small team of 6-7 people built an entire agent cloud infrastructure from scratch in just a few weeks using these tools and agents [18:50:00], [18:55:00], [18:58:00], [19:00:00].

Founders and tech leaders are challenged to fully embrace this paradigm, which may require letting go of old experiences and critically rethinking established practices [19:21:00], [19:23:00], [19:25:00], [19:30:00], [19:33:00]. Focusing only on small efficiency gains from AI means falling behind companies that are integrating it fundamentally [19:55:00], [19:57:00], [20:01:00], [20:04:00]. The recommendation is to start from first principles, reimagine, and refit the company and culture for this future, rewiring processes to enable human-to-agent teams to scale impact exponentially [20:12:00], [20:14:00], [20:17:00], [20:19:00], [20:21:00], [20:25:00]. This could involve redesigning org charts, redefining roles, and rethinking required skills [20:35:00], [20:37:00], [20:40:00].

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