Andy Sack, Adam Brotman, and colleague Rose Kelly unpack a workflow that almost wasn't one. Preparing a board presentation on a complex new initiative, Brotman asked Claude Opus 5.5 to turn a PowerPoint into a video, then pushed it to match the production quality of two reference videos.

On its own initiative, the agent searched his email and meeting transcripts, ran external research, and worked for two hours, producing what he describes as a one-shot result. The hosts contrast this with a year ago, when the same task meant stitching together multiple tools scene by scene, and argue agents now take on the work of knowing how to use AI. Brotman adds that the more persistent and connected an agent is, with memory, data access, and knowledge of your goals, the more it anticipates what you need.

For executives, the shift is from managing how work gets done to defining what outcome they want, then steering and validating the result with their own taste and judgment, a principle the hosts explore in their book, Agents Inc.