The Agent Native Company — Rick Blalock, Agentuity

Key Concepts

• Agent Native/AI Native Companies: Companies built from the ground up with AI agents at the core of everything.
• AI Enhanced vs. AI Native: AI enhanced uses AI as a tool, while AI native has AI as a core primitive.
• Agentic Workday: A workday where overseeing and guiding AI agents is a central activity.
• AI Fluency: The ability to effectively use and guide AI agents, becoming a must-have skill.
• Humans as Conductors: Shifting from being cogs in a machine to orchestrating AI agents.
• Flat Team Structure: Reduction in middle management due to AI handling coordination.
• Experimentation and Iterative Culture: Rapid prototyping and learning facilitated by AI.

AI Enhanced vs. Agent Native (AI Native)

• AI Enhanced: Companies that use AI as a tool for specific tasks, like chatbots or document processing. They can still function without AI, albeit less efficiently. Analogous to a car with driver assist.
• Agent Native (AI Native): Companies built with AI agents at the core of their operations, product, and culture. AI is the engine that drives the company forward. Removing AI would significantly hinder productivity, increase costs, and make the company less competitive. Analogous to a self-driving car on autopilot.
• Key Difference: AI enhanced businesses use AI; AI native businesses are built around AI.

What Makes a Company Agent Native?

• AI at the Center of Everything: AI is not confined to one team or feature but is integrated into product development, customer support, and operations. Each department has agents performing routine and key daily tasks.
• Humans as Orchestrators (Conductors): Employees are not just cogs in a machine but conductors guiding AI agents. This requires a different hiring profile and organizational structure.
• Flatter, Leaner Structure: Middle management layers shrink as AI handles coordination and execution. The org chart resembles a network of humans and AI rather than a pyramid.
• Experimentation and Iterative Culture in the DNA: AI facilitates rapid prototyping and learning, allowing for more experimentation and faster iteration cycles.
• Self-Learning Agent Evolution: Agents learn and improve over time, becoming more effective and knowledgeable. Example: Cognition's Devin, which has learned Agentuity's codebase and processes.

Agent Native Typical Workday

• Overseeing AI: A significant portion of the workday involves overseeing what AI agents are doing or have done.
• Morning Routine: Start the day by checking the status of AI agents, reviewing their work, and assigning new tasks.
• Example: The speaker uses ChatGPT and other AI tools during his morning commute to brainstorm ideas and kick off tasks for AI agents like Devin.
• Lunchtime Review: Review pull requests, collateral, and emails generated by AI agents.
• Employee Role: Every employee becomes a lead manager of their AI agent counterparts, responsible for guiding and orchestrating their work.
• Titles: Job titles will evolve to combine domain expertise with AI know-how (e.g., AI Engineer, AI Customer Lead).

Rethinking the Hiring Process

• AI Fluency as a Must-Have: AI fluency becomes as essential as word processing skills in the past.
• Focus on Adaptability and Curiosity: Hiring for adaptability and curiosity is crucial, as employees need to be able to guide and learn from AI agents.
• Skepticism Towards AI Illiteracy: Candidates who are unfamiliar with AI raise immediate warning flags.
• Emphasis on AI Skills in Leadership: VPs and other leaders are evaluated on their ability to use AI and build teams with AI fluency.
• Onboarding: New hires should focus on setting up their AI agents to be successful in their roles.
• Support: Attaching an engineer to new teams to ensure their agents are up and running.

Conclusion

• Profound Shift: The integration of AI agents into every aspect of business represents a profound shift, requiring a rethinking of roles, skills, culture, and operations.
• Beyond Efficiency Gains: Companies should not just use AI for small efficiency gains but build their entire business around AI as a core primitive.
• Challenge for Founders: Experienced founders need to check their past experiences at the door and reimagine their companies for the AI-driven future.
• First Principles Approach: Take a first principles approach to redesigning the organization and rewiring processes to enable human-agent teams to scale exponentially.
• Unfair Advantage: Embracing this paradigm shift can create an unfair advantage for companies that do it well.
• Final Question: Is your company using AI, or is it ready to be built around AI?