Why Your AI Pilot Never Left the Meeting Room

00:01

So, a prospect came to me recently. Uh they wanted to automate their document processing using agentic AI. Smart person, senior guy, running an amazing business, and about 3 minutes into the conversation, it became clear they couldn't describe what they were asking me to build, which isn't exactly a criticism. In fact, it's perfectly normal. Most people who want agentic AI

00:28

right now cannot define it. What this also means, though, is that they cannot hire for it, which means they're hiring the wrong people to build it. So, here's something you need to know if you are embarking on your agentic AI journey.

00:45

There is a meaningful difference between an engineer who builds a properly chained and evaluated agentic system, something you can actually trust in production, and someone who writes prompts and makes a few API calls and calls it AI engineering.

01:03

Most buyers cannot currently tell these apart. Your pilot isn't still in the meeting room because the technology doesn't work. It's there because of a hiring decision you made before the build started, and hiring decisions are always the most critical decisions a business owner makes. So, before you commission the next AI project, ask your candidate to describe how they would evaluate an

01:33

agent's output at scale, and how they would look for degradation over time. The answer to these questions, or lack thereof, will help you make the right call.