# AI agents and automation: what operators said this week

What operators say about putting AI agents and automation to work.

Updated 2026-10-29. Source: https://verbatim.theartofservice.com/topics/ai-agents

> "That’s an AI agent that is assisting the live agent. And that agent assist is very popular and is a growing, growing trend."
- Chip George on The GovCon Room, 2026-10-28, at 21:53. Listen: https://verbatim.theartofservice.com/listen/65ff54ad3ccfa527

> "Agents add about 40% to the Amazon basket. I see that in my own life. My agent upsells me constantly."
- Devin Kunysz on The CPG Guys, 2026-10-21, at 24:57. Listen: https://verbatim.theartofservice.com/listen/9c4f84f0be8b4040

> "I have an AI agent… I took a picture of my fridge… that agent then feeds me the exact list and says… here are three recipes… it spits out a grocery list."
- Devin Kunysz on The CPG Guys, 2026-10-21, at 22:05. Listen: https://verbatim.theartofservice.com/listen/1a7ffcd1595ffcfe

> "If I were building an agent from scratch, I wouldn't start by saying, let's remember everything. I would start with the job the agent is expected to perform, and I would work backwards from that."
- Sowjanya Pandruju on Software Engineering Radio - the podcast for professional software developers, 2026-10-22, at 16:59. Listen: https://verbatim.theartofservice.com/listen/b8e22dbf317c2a41

> "How much do you guys charge for that? Well, nothing. We just take some of the agents commission."
- Envisage Property on money money money, 2026-10-27, at 32:33. Listen: https://verbatim.theartofservice.com/listen/76b66de9b3f7d038

> "we just did a big ad campaign and we hired a celebrity. We talked about being your, you know, being your best friend and really tried to go a different angle where we, we appealed to the humanity of people, not just agents and brands, you know, AI."
- Jamie Domenici on MarTech Podcast ™ // Marketing + Technology = Business Growth, 2026-10-26, at 37:42. Listen: https://verbatim.theartofservice.com/listen/07401dff66e65ec9

> "I have my own security agent that reviews the code. And it's like, well, Claude just created the code. But then Claude is now with its security app going, well, that code is insecure."
- George Kurtz (CrowdStrike executive) on No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups, 2026-10-22, at 38:19. Listen: https://verbatim.theartofservice.com/listen/1079a19062a0bedd

> "we're model agnostic and in a way feature agnostic, right, where we encourage folks to export to Figma if they want to and get high fidelity precision or export to the coding agent of their choice, right?"
- Magic Patterns on Y Combinator Startup Podcast, 2026-10-23, at 14:32. Listen: https://verbatim.theartofservice.com/listen/ef877e9772dbcbc0

> "the agent has access to a tool for reading a file, another for searching the code base, another for running tests. Those tools are exposed to the model, along with information describing what they can do and how they can be used."
- Sowjanya Pandruju on Software Engineering Radio - the podcast for professional software developers, 2026-10-22, at 6:44. Listen: https://verbatim.theartofservice.com/listen/f75987dd7adf4935

> "And eventually I just decided I need to take control of this. And bit by bit, I started to chip away, automate my work. And that's when I started Excel Off The Grid to try and kind of share what I'd learned and help other people to do similar things."
- Mark Proctor on FP&A Unlocked, 2026-10-22, at 2:08. Listen: https://verbatim.theartofservice.com/listen/6bd76d5c1f3fb3d8

> "So instead of buying a massive automation suite today, map out your entire fulfillment process on a physical whiteboard. Find the friction, smooth out the steps, and only purchase the software when the human volume completely maxes out."
- Paul Alex on The Level Up Podcast w/ Paul Alex, 2026-10-23, at 1:46. Listen: https://verbatim.theartofservice.com/listen/da6391bf4c64a605