Speed, Order, Aim, Unlock: Inside the Launch of Agents Inc.

Adam Brotman and Andy Sack mark the launch of their new book, Agents Inc., in a mini episode facilitated by Forum3's Rose Kelly. The conversation picks up where last week's origin-story episode left off, moving from why the book exists to what it actually argues.

At the center of the book is a framework: speed, order, aim, and the unlock. Brotman defines an agent against a chatbot, emphasizing persistence, memory, and the ability to act on a leader's behalf, then walks through what changes when work shifts from doing tasks to managing systems that do them. Sack adds a blunt data point from the book's fifteen leader interviews: most organizations, in their view, can eventually run with roughly half their current headcount once agents are deployed well.

For executives, the takeaway is sequencing. Where you aim an agent determines whether it becomes a genuine unlock, like a dedicated store manager agent, or just another underused tool. The episode also previews the living book experience launching alongside Agents Inc., built with an agentic co-author that keeps the book current after publication.

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Adam Brotman (00:00)
the book talks about this, but I'm gonna voice over it a little bit here. and Andy will build on this. The book talks about how you as a human, in either an individual contributor or a manager or whatever, you need to rethink, almost like unlearn how you've thought about working in the past, right? And you need to think about the fact that now that you've got this tool, this agentic tool at your disposal.

disposal, where do you want to point it? How do you want to incorporate in what you do? Well that's a different mindset. You're more of an output manager, you're more of manager in general. If you're not a manager before you're gonna be a manager, and it's not just, everyone's gonna become a manager. A manager of these very, very capable systems, okay? So it changes the nature of your work as a human. But it's your work as a human is critical, right? It's your judgment. It's your taste, so to speak, it's your

understanding of an industry and what you're trying to achieve that matters the most. And the agents aren't gonna work without that.

Andy (00:56)
This is AI First with Adam and Andy, the show that takes you straight to the front lines of AI innovation and business. I'm Andy Sack, and alongside my co-host Adam Brottman, each episode we bring you candid conversations with business leaders transforming their businesses with AI. No fluff, just real talk, actionable use cases, and insights for you.

Welcome back to AI First, everyone. Super excited for today's mini episode.

Today is the launch of the book Agents Inc. We have Rose Kelly, ⁓ who's an employee at Forum 3 with us to help facilitate this episode. we're super excited ⁓ and proud of the work that is being delivered to all of you. So, Rose, I'm gonna hand the reins of this episode over to you for you to drive and facilitate.

Rose (01:44)
Awesome. I'm well in. Okay. So if you didn't listen to last week's episode, I would encourage you to give that a listen because we did give a little bit more behind the scenes and kind of tell about the origin story of Agents Inc. but the title kind of says it all, Agents Inc., but I just think, you know, as we talk to clients, I find that people have a hard time of really wrapping their heads around what is an agent and what does that really mean.

Andy (01:44)
Good.

Rose (02:07)
So before we get into the content of the book, Adam, do you think you can kind of just give us your definition of agents and how we help people think about agents and what that looks like?

Adam Brotman (02:15)
Yeah, it's a fun topic. It's why the book is so fun, because I'm not saying it's like a person, because that it weirds me out and weirds everybody out, but the best way to think about it is like a virtual person in some ways, so the way I'm gonna define an agent is how it's different than a chat bot. That's maybe better, but it's kind of got like human-like qualities in the sense that.

You can give an agent its own communication channels. You can give an agent like the sense of persistence. And it can like email you and it can text you and it remembers things and it can just get things done over long periods of time, either on a recurring basis or like you can give it a long task. because AI got good at computer use, it's kind of like

giving like a super smart person who's really good at like writing code and using computers and doing spreadsheets and doing planning and strategy, doing writing, doing anything. Like giving that person a computer on top of it so they can actually go do things and then deliver you results. And that was kind of science fiction until January, February of this year. And when it became not science fiction,

we, Andy and I, and you too, Rose, but Andy and I, our whole company, we realized, wow, this is like another big change, and we have something to say about it's gonna change the nature of companies. It's gonna change everything. And it's not just because of AI, it's because of AI kind of takes on this personification and this ability to do things. And that was the mind-blowing. and you know, we talk about it in the book, but that was the mind-blowing thing that like if you could actually have AI

become more like an assistant and a coworker and a teammate, then wow, that's not just another technology that actually is gonna profoundly rewire the way that we're gonna build companies and we're gonna build products and we're gonna do things. And that's what an agent is and that's sort of why it's important to understand that is you now think about like, ⁓ okay, I bet these guys have something to say about that. And Andy can talk about like what it is we we think the implications are.

Rose (04:09)
Yeah, I mean, I know in the book, you go into more about like what that looks like to actually have agents as a part of your organization and working with agents. And you have some frameworks and some great models for how people should think about that. Andy, I mean, when you think about it though, if a leader is reading that book, what would be one of like the big idea you'd want them to take away from the book?

Andy (04:29)
I think the big idea is summarized in a couple of key words. Speed, order, aim, and the unlock. So let me unpack what those words mean for you. Cause like what I'll say is is that we arrived at that insight, and I think that that is the kernel and the big idea behind it. So speed is like

If I'm a business leader and I have employees, whether they five employees to 500 or 5,000, how fast should I go in terms of working with agents? In what order in my organization should I deploy these digital teammates? And aim is where should I aim them? where should I aim this super powerful agentic machine?

And if you aim it in the right area, which really takes a business leader being familiar enough ⁓ and intuitively understanding, having worked with AI and agents enough to be able to aim correctly, you get an unlock. And the unlock for a business can be incredibly powerful.

we document that by, you know, I did in the process of writing the book, we did 15 interviews with business leaders and entrepreneurs who got the bug early and we tried to share those stories about speed, order, aim, and the business unlock. We also tried to share what it means in terms of

How work itself is gonna be changed. Like, you know, we wrote Agents Inc., we set out to do it in two months. It took us three months to get an entire book that's 200 plus pages to market. and that process previously took 20 months for our first book, AI First. And so the nature of work has totally changed as a result of the agentic era and agents.

the organizational structure, and we talk about organizational structure in the book, has totally changed. and it's these things are incredibly powerful and they can be massive unlocks for your business, period.

Rose (06:23)
Adam, anything to add there in terms of ⁓ speed order aim?

Adam Brotman (06:26)
No, I think Andy did a great job of talking about it. The only thing I was gonna add is ⁓ I love as Andy was saying it, it almost gave me goosebumps 'cause he's right about the unlock and when we've seen it, yeah.

Andy (06:37)
What do we mean, Adam, what do we mean by that? Like I mean I

I yeah, 'cause I don't think I gave an example and I think that would help.

Adam Brotman (06:42)
I'll go.

Rose (06:42)
just gonna say can you give

us some examples of maybe what it was an unlock for you guys of like writing this book maybe with agents and then also Adam some of the unlocks we see for like consumer brands and some of the restaurant brands that we work with. What that can look like.

Adam Brotman (06:54)
Yeah.

Okay, I'll give two examples. And I think I speak for Andy and I when I say the unlock for the book is that it would not have been acceptable to Andy and I to write a book about agents starting in March of twenty twenty six that would take twenty months. it was like we can't do it. And by the way

Andy (07:11)
Yeah, unacceptable.

Unacceptable.

Adam Brotman (07:12)
It's un it's

unacceptable. It's like it would have for sure been out of date, but it also like would have been like, who cares about what you have to say 20 months from now about a topic that's changing week to week? And so it had to be done in two or three months, like for it to still be relevant. so how are we gonna do that? And by the way, how are we gonna do that when we're pretty busy? so this is something I think our audience and business leaders can relate to. Like it had to be done in three months, not twenty months, and it had to be done in a way

That didn't consume a hundred percent of all of mine and Andy's time. Because if you could have said, well, maybe if you drop everything, you could write this book in three months. But that was not possible and acceptable. Yeah, if you do. So it was like the unlock in our case was like, what if an agent that can write as well or better than Andy and I, in terms of just being able to write? Put aside your thoughts about AI slop and AI writing, and it's all legit. Like AI can write.

Rose (07:39)
Lip, lit.

Andy (07:48)
Yeah, we had full-time jobs.

Adam Brotman (08:06)
I mean, it can write, okay? It's got some skills. And like it can write, it can research, it can edit, and it can do it at silicon speed. and Andy had this great process of like, I'm gonna go talk to folks, I'm gonna these interviews. And you know, I was on a few of them, but Andy was really driving it, doing a great job of driving it and like and like feeding those interviews in and not having to sit back and like take notes on them and then Andy and I debriefing. Like we were able to

Do an interview, talk for 10 seconds, feed it into the agent, and have it just like rewrite a prior chapter based on what it learned in the future chapter and what it was talking to us about. Like the ability to unlock an actual, we think is a very good book to say what we had to say, to feed in these interviews and do it in three months, not 20 months. That was not possible without an agent. Okay, so that's what we mean by an unlock is what would not have been possible prior to an agent.

⁓ that's an example in the bookcase. In the example of like our bread and butter working with like restaurant clients, ⁓ the best example I'd give you is we build one of the agents that we build for our restaurant clients is a store manager agent. And a store manager agent is an agent that basically is like an assistant, a chief of staff, and an analyst that every store manager, every restaurant manager can have in the world.

that is like literally and physically and more importantly, financially impossible. You cannot afford to hire an analyst and a chief of staff for every one of your store managers, but they need it more than anybody I've ever heard of. I've worked in restaurants for the majority of my career. the restaurant manager and the district managers that are out there, they're running the company, and they are the lifeblood of the company, and they could sure use that staff, right? And that assistance. and the companies can't afford it. But

You can give them with an agent, an actual chief of staff meets analyst, meets assistant that can do work for them, that can actually help them stay on top of their business. And like that's a huge unlock. And actually, we have examples, which we'll talk about in the future, of how it's actually driving the business. So like that's an example of what we mean by an agent, that's an unlock. But you gotta figure out like what is that thing for your business, which is why Andy was saying, where do you aim it? And so you don't just think, it's gonna unlock everything. Like that's not what we're talking about. Like you gotta.

Do it in a sensible, sequential manner.

Andy (10:17)
I'll add on the unlock thing. I think for us, really in many ways speed order aim, it became this the whole process of writing the book and publishing the book and now creating the living book, there's a website which goes live today, and it's got our agentic co author Vera Brown.

And Vera as an agent is tasked with interacting with all of you and serving up the content and answering your questions in the way that you want to as readers. The whole idea of a living book and having an agent that interacts with the reader ⁓ in new ways that's always up to date.

That's the Vera is going to be searching for news on agents as new things happen in the market. And all that's going to be available to readers over time, this notion of a living book with an agent. In many ways, that's a totally different consumer experience than sitting on the beach reading the hardcover copy of the book or the audible version of listening to the book. This is a totally different consumer experience. And when we talk about the word unlock.

That's an unlock of a customer experience. And that kind of unlock when we figured out that we were going to do that, which I credit Adam with having that insight and that idea, that's what speed order aim unlock. That unlock is that new customer experience that wasn't previously possible, but because of AI and agents, suddenly you could create something that's

Totally different and hopefully delightful. It might break, but because it's alpha. I also want to say that ⁓ we worked closely with dear friend of mine, old colleague Brad Feld, who gets credit for helping w working with us to conceptualize and implement Vera Brown. So thanks, Brad. So when I say unlock, that's an example of that unique customer experience.

Rose (12:04)
I love that. And I know it just gets my brain going and thinking about all the ideas of the consumer brands or the brands that I engage with, of like what could their unlock be? and I like that you gave that example of the store manager agent, Adam, because it was a job that didn't exist previously. But I know that when people are thinking about agents and when we're talking about agents, everyone's mind is like, well, what does that mean for the humans? Like, do humans still exist in these companies, or is it just agents? Like, what does that mean for my job? And so

I guess Adam, like what are your thoughts there? And what does it mean for a human and and and what should our listeners be thinking about?

Adam Brotman (12:36)
Well, I'd say that, and the book talks about this, but I'm gonna voice over it a little bit here. and Andy will build on this. The book talks about how you as a human, in either an individual contributor or a manager or whatever, you need to rethink, almost like unlearn how you've thought about working in the past, right? And you need to think about the fact that now that you've got this tool, this agentic tool at your disposal.

disposal, where do you want to point it? How do you want to incorporate in what you do? Well that's a different mindset. You're more of an output manager, you're more of manager in general. If you're not a manager before you're gonna be a manager, and it's not just, everyone's gonna become a manager. A manager of these very, very capable systems, okay? So it changes the nature of your work as a human. But it's your work as a human is critical, right? It's your judgment. It's your taste, so to speak, it's your

understanding of an industry and what you're trying to achieve that matters the most. And the agents aren't gonna work without that. So it does change the nature of what you're gonna do. And it it is scary because you know there you are you are going to become much more efficient as an organization if everyone snaps to this and figures out how they can manage agents and use them. You're gonna need

Less people to do the same amount of work and the same things. But Rose, you said it really well. It's gonna open up the ability for you to do new things and different things. And it's gonna open up the ability for people that that don't have a job to become solopreneurs. And there's gonna be a lot of positives that go with what I think Andy and I would both say are gonna be a lot of scary, like turbulence that's gonna come with this period. But as a human, it's not about like you're not important. your role's gonna change.

there's gonna be a lot more captains of a lot more ships from a solarpreneurship perspective. And at the office, so to speak, at the company, there's gonna be a lot more captains too. They're gonna be managers of agentic systems as opposed to just task doers. So that's why there's still not just a role for humans. There's like the the role's just gonna change and humans play a critical role. It's just a different role. Andy, do you wanna build on that? Because I probably sugarcoated that too much.

Andy (14:39)
Yeah, how much straight talk should I be giving here? I mean, I think look, we we we did fifteen interviews. I'll pick on one, the chairman of the company had a 40 person organization. the company was over 15 years old and he started playing with OpenClaw. He had a total agentic

Adam Brotman (14:41)
Yeah.

Andy (14:58)
Holy shit moment, and was like, my gosh, this totally changes work and the way in which my organization operates. And he basically, in his mind, in a period of a week to two weeks, was like, I don't need 40 people anymore. That organization is now, I want to say 12 people.

⁓ so layoffs for sure are gonna happen as a result of agents. Agents are digital teammates. They make existing workflows they're you know, in many ways, they're more reliable and automated than humans, and they make the unlock possible. there's a debate about sort of because of the unlock and all the capabilities, because of the rise in solopreneurship. I think like

business and industries are gonna radically change and there's gonna be a wave of layoffs that come. and you know put on your seatbelts everybody and it's why we need a living book because our ability to stay on top of it like we did of the best that we could over the last

90 days. It took we set out to do it in two months. It took us three months. And there's gonna be a physical book as well as a living book to help update you. And we're gonna work with Vera Brown to make that experience as best as possible. But collectively we're gonna share stories. There'll be a community that happens with the living book. And we wanna capture these use cases and actually refine our point of view.

Nobody really can predict the future if you haven't figured that out yet. And ⁓ and so I will say that in the book we say that with our current understanding of what agents do, you know, we look at every organization and say generally you can do that with about half the headcount that you currently have. And that's not universally true, but that's our bias, that's our going in sort of predisposition.

So I'll just put that out there as the you know, the other side of the sugar coat. and in the book we cover, you know, sort of what that means and there's a lot of human implications and I say that number and I'm not insensitive to it. And we're also excited by the, you know, the unlock and what it's capable of. So, you know, we've got our seatbelts on and and we're collectively, let's go through this and and share and learn together.

Rose (16:59)
So I guess I think we're gonna wrap this episode up. I know we're gonna be doing some future episodes ⁓ on the book. There's so many things we wanna dive into. You guys have touched on anything. I had to hold back from asking you guys more questions because there's a lot I think we can dive into. but I guess do you wanna talk about where people can find the book? Visit forum3.com and it'll link to the kind of living book experience. any last words from you guys?

Andy (17:22)
Yeah, go to forum3.com. we'll have pointers to it. the real answer is I don't know the domain off the top of my head. ⁓ but I know we have one. and with that, whether that makes it ⁓ post-production or not, with that, I wanna thank you, Rose, for facilitating.

Adam Brotman (17:29)
Okay.

Yeah.

Andy (17:42)
Thank the entire audience for listening to AI First with Adam and Andy. For more resources on how to become AI First, you can visit our website, www.forum3.com, download case studies, research briefings, executive similarities, join our email list, and buy Agents Inc.

We also invite you to connect with our AI First community, a curated hub and network for leaders, turning AI hype into action. We truly believe you can't overinvest in your AI learning. Onward.