What Are AI Agents—And Who Profits From Them?

Each quarter, Every tells its writers to put down their pencils, stop scribbling, and think. We call these our Think Weeks, and they’re phenomenal opportunities to take a break from the daily hustle, step back, and look at the evolving tech and business landscape. Ahead of OpenAI’s DevDay taking place on October 1, we thought this was a perfect time to republish some of our sharpest writing on ChatGPT. First up, Evan Armstrong’s look-ahead about AI agents, which feel closer to reality than ever.—Kate Lee

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Most races have a prize pool. The New York City marathon winner gets $100,000. The  F1 winner in 2023 took home a $140 million pot.

The winner of the race that I’m going to describe will earn billions. Maybe tens of billions. They’ll bend the arc of the universe. They’ll materially increase the GDP of entire countries.

This is the race toward the AI agent. Agents are the next step in the AI race and the focus of every major tech giant, AI startup, and research lab. 

I’ve spent months talking with founders, investors, and scientists, trying to understand this technology. Today, I’m going to share my findings. I’ll cover:

• What an AI agent is
• The major players
• The technical bets
• The future

Let’s get into it.

What is an agentic workflow?

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Become a paid subscriber to Every to unlock this piece and learn about:

• The hunt for the ultimate AI assistant
• Competing on components and integration
• Model-first versus workflow-focused approaches
• The potential for a single, all-powerful model