AI at Work

AI agent governance and the bitter lesson: why the rules you write for your AI agents today won't last, plus email falling from 3% to 0.3% response.Kevin Williams and co-host Matt get into what happens when agents start talking to other agents and who decides what they're allowed to share. Kevin connects it to the bitter lesson and to the N8N workflows Claude Code wiped out in January. They also cover security for a bot-driven company and what drives AI adoption inside a team.In this episode:- Why Matt keeps some bots locked so only he can command them- The bitter lesson, and Google's healthcare models losing to general frontier models- Email response rates dropping from about 3% to about 0.3%- Kevin's four security controls: 2FA, limited cards, capped API spend, code words- A client office where everyone had Dot open one week after rollout- Matt's twenty-minute, one-presenter weekly show and tellThanks to our Sponsors!AscendAI: https://ascendlabs.aiRapidDev: https://rapidevelopers.com/LiberNovo: https://libernovo.com/Try Muse, get a billion tokens! https://muse.ai/join (use code RHYQ60  in settings)CHECK OUT KEVIN’S STUFF:Website: https://ascendlabs.ai/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinguywilliams/Free Tool: Take the https://assessment.ascendlabs.ai/Deep Dive: Read the https://resources.ascendlabs.ai/openai-vs-anthropic-for-teams...Book a Call: Book a call...CHECK OUT MATT’S STUFF:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-graham-nocode/Company: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rapid-dev/Direct Email: Reach out to Matt at [email protected]

How much should you trust AI agents to make decisions? Kevin Williams explains why human-in-the-loop reviewers make bad bot sitters, and Matt runs Codex with full autonomy.Kevin Williams and Matt talk through the agentic tools they use every day, from Dot in Slack to a dial-in number Kevin uses to talk through his workday. They argue about guardrails, YOLO mode, and when it makes sense for a team.In this episode:- Why a human reviewing fragments of an automation can't give a meaningful thumbs-up- Matt's setup that tunnels Dot directly to Codex, credit cards included- Kevin's advice on virtual credit cards for agents- Running an hour a day by voice, including sending NDAs- A solo Harvard MBA who coordinated 11 external labs with Claude, and why Anthropic bought him- The risk of restructuring around a small AI-built SaaS vendorThanks to our Sponsors!AscendAI: https://ascendlabs.aiRapidDev: https://rapidevelopers.com/LiberNovo: https://libernovo.com/Try Muse, get a billion tokens! https://muse.ai/join (use code RHYQ60  in settings)CHECK OUT KEVIN’S STUFF:Website: https://ascendlabs.ai/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinguywilliams/Free Tool: Take the https://assessment.ascendlabs.ai/Deep Dive: Read the https://resources.ascendlabs.ai/openai-vs-anthropic-for-teams...Book a Call: Book a call...CHECK OUT MATT’S STUFF:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-graham-nocode/Company: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rapid-dev/Direct Email: Reach out to Matt at [email protected]

How to fix your business before you automate it with AI. Sabir Semerkant exited three brands from his program for skipping that step.Kevin Williams sits down with Sabir Semerkant, founder and CEO of Growth by Sabir, who has worked in direct-to-consumer ecommerce since the field was new. They get into why AI scales bad processes and bad data, the multi-model audit workflow Sabir runs in Claude Code, and how to test new models without breaking production.In this episode:- Why Sabir exited about three brands from his Rapid2X program- Garbage in, garbage out, and why wrong attribution data gets dangerous- An orchestrator, Haiku workers, and two read-only auditors scoring work over three rounds- Why Sabir pays monthly for his $100 plans and skips the annual discount- The Meta and Gemini tests that failed in his dev environment- Kevin's 600 hard-coded references to Sonnet 4.6 and the config file fixThanks to our Sponsors!AscendAI: https://ascendlabs.aiRapidDev: https://rapidevelopers.com/LiberNovo: https://libernovo.com/Try Muse, get a billion tokens! https://muse.ai/join (use code RHYQ60  in settings)CHECK OUT KEVIN’S STUFF:Website: https://ascendlabs.ai/LinkedIn: LinkedIn... –Free Tool: Take the https://assessment.ascendlabs.ai/Deep Dive: Read the https://resources.ascendlabs.ai/openai-vs-anthropic-for-teams...Book a Call: Book a call...CHECK OUT SABIR’S STUFF:Website: https://growthbysabir.com/

How to start using AI agents in your business, and why taste matters more than tools. Plus the Charleston room where all 17 CEOs leaned in.Kevin Williams and Matt compare notes on agent setups, why two people automating the same job get wildly different results, and what business owners in paving and HVAC are finally doing about AI. Kevin also shares where he tells every company to start.In this episode:- Why an agent built by someone with taste beats one built by a beginner- Who to pair with your taste people, and why they rarely have the technical skills too- Why large organizations shouldn't let everyone build their own AI solutions- 17 CEOs in Charleston, all engaged with AI for the first time- Kevin's two starting points: expensive human mistakes and misused talent- Living with ChatGPT's Dots, long-tail tasks, and 2FA headachesThanks to our Sponsors!AscendAI: https://ascendlabs.aiRapidDev: https://rapidevelopers.com/LiberNovo: https://libernovo.com/Try Muse, get a billion tokens! https://muse.ai/join (use code RHYQ60  in settings)CHECK OUT KEVIN’S STUFF:Website: https://ascendlabs.ai/LinkedIn: LinkedIn... –Free Tool: Take the https://assessment.ascendlabs.ai/Deep Dive: Read the https://resources.ascendlabs.ai/openai-vs-anthropic-for-teams...Book a Call: Book a call...CHECK OUT MATT’S STUFF:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-graham-nocode/Company: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rapid-dev/Direct Email: Reach out to Matt at [email protected]

How to build with AI when you're not a full-time developer, plus OpenAI's Dot agent doing a month of work in a day. Kevin Williams and AI developer Vlad Larin.Vlad Larin went from managing a 250-person delivery team to building with AI himself, and he argues the skill that separates good AI builders from bad vibe coders is the same one that separated good developers from bad ones: vision, architecture, and knowing what the product is supposed to do. Kevin Williams and Vlad compare build setups, test OpenAI's Dot, and talk about what AI subscriptions are likely to cost.In this episode:- Why a decade of untangling client requirements translates to building with AI- Vlad's setup: Codex plan mode, GitHub, Supabase, and Vercel- Gaslighting Codex as an "unofficial turbo mode" (and when it backfires)- Dot catching a missing meeting invite and bills due, unprompted- Kevin's 100-ad Meta campaign run hands-off with computer use- Why $500 a month is justifiable and $5,000 would stunt the marketThanks to our new Sponsor LiberNovo and their insanely supportive Omni Chair:  https://libernovo.com/To try out Muse and get a BILLION tokens use code: RHYQ60  https://muse.ai/join (full disclosure, we will get a billion tokens too… but aren’t sure how we will use them)Ready to find out where your organization actually stands on AI readiness?https://assessment.ascendlabs.ai/Want to talk through your AI tool decisions before you commit?tidycal.com/kevinwilliamsCHECK OUT KEVIN’S STUFF:Website: https://ascendlabs.ai/LinkedIn: LinkedIn... –Free Tool: Take the https://assessment.ascendlabs.ai/Deep Dive: Read the https://resources.ascendlabs.ai/openai-vs-anthropic-for-teams...Book a Call: Book a call...VLAD LARIN:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vlad-larin/