The other day, I sat down for an amazing interview with Kyle James, host of the Prompted: Agent.ai Builder Stories from Agent.ai.
And here's what I had to say about the agentic revolution and the future of "citizen builders"...👇
Hear me out.
Before AI, in order to break into any space, you most likely (yet, not always) needed a lucky combo of either an expensive (or at the bare minimum, paid) education, a valuable (semi-inherited) network of individuals within that specific niche or industry, and/or being a successor to something a family member had built that could last for the long haul...
Nothing can be better than building from the shoulders of someone who ran the race, provided sustainability and vision to a business, and handed you the keys to indefinite prosperity.
Yet, in today's economy, that's become less an achievable goal, and more of a dream...
And that's what AI came to disrupt..
Unless your name is Sam Altman, or Dario Amodei, you probably don't have more than 3 years of experience leveling up on AI (considering the commercial release of ChatGPT to have been around November 2022).
I've been in the trenches since then, yet I am not a seasoned expert on AI at all, nor could I (or should I) claim to be one.
There is no algorithm to hack, no repeatable playbook to get rich off of, and as I mentioned in My Thoughts On AEO, despite the great and quite interesting frameworks that folks like Neil Patel and Marcus Sheridan have consistently proven to work in the past few months, I believe we're still in experiment mode...
I'm not talking about sending through HubSpot, launching an email campaign, nor crafting a lead nurture series, I am saying...
If all you need to know how to do on either a computer or a mobile phone is to open your Gmail, click "Compose", add a recipient's email address to the "Send to" box, and type something...anything in the body of that email...
You can get stuff done with an AI agent...
Powerful stuff.
First off, what's a Citizen Builder? Simple, Dharmesh Shah (billionaire founder of Agent.ai and co-founder of HubSpot) coined the term "citizen builders" to define all of those innovative folks in the Agent.ai platform who create AI Agents without any technical/dev background..
And guess what?
Your boy Jorge Fuentes Zapata is a citizen builder...
I come from a law, insurance, and marketing background.
So, if you think you need to know ANYTHING about code, programming, web development and so on, before getting to build AI Agents, you're waaaay off...
You're missing out if you're limiting yourself to believing that any value you can add to the world via AI requires a coding background... here's why...
Look, if anyone knows what it's like to spend a heck ton of hours (and days) building something precious, producing a "digital baby", caring for it, prepping it for the real world, and then sending it out there for all to see, just to get it bashed and crushed by the audience by saying, at minimum, that it sucks...that's me, I've been through it (and still do).
I've been there a heck ton of times, in fact, I learned that from my high school years, when I ran this 5K subscribers/1M+ views channel and the first videos I produced got the toughest of feedback and curses, and while it was painful at first, I became addicted to it. What do I mean by "it" exactly?...
Producing something meaningful, hitting publish, reading the worst of the worst possible comments, and then, the best step of it all...improving it!
Taking that feedback in only to get better and level up, instead of quitting.
Business and life, are not about winners and losers, but rather about players on the field, and players on the bench. When you quit, you're putting yourself on the bench, when you keep going, and keep showing up, despite getting crushed...that's when, eventually, your season will arrive.
Here's a bit more about my mindset on that front...
Finally, let's get this clear...
AI is only going to replace the replaceable humans...
But it will magnify and propel those that are already putting in the work and striving to level up.
Did you read that correctly?
If you get replaced by AI, it means you did something wrong; it means your talent, skill, and brainpower became a commodity (like apples and carrots), and since you did not use it to produce anything different or more valuable, then even something (not someone) with enough intelligence, regardless of how artificial it is, was able to replace you.
And that should scare the heck out of you.
It's not about worrying about the future, it's about doing something now.
The only way to tackle fear and anxiety is by faith and action.
If you're fearful of anything, be it AI or technological disruption, it's your call to action, it's God's way of saying, Get up and do something...
And guess what, the playing field has never been more equal, the opportunity has never been this close to absolutely anyone.
If you have internet access and a device of any kind that can go to ChatGPT.com, you can start adding value today.
You can start learning, while adding value too.
AI can be your teacher, your coach, your mentor, and then your partner in implementation.
Watch the full interview below, and as usual, let me know your thoughts!