You have 3-5 years before AI agents become normal

TL;DR

• 78% of executives believe digital ecosystems will be built for humans AND AI agents
• The transition from “assistants” to “autonomous agents” is already happening
• There’s a 3-5 year window to position yourself
• After that, it’ll be too late to gain an advantage

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Until now, AI has been an assistant.

You ask something, it answers. You ask it to write something, it writes. You decide, you execute, AI helps.

That’s changing.

From assistant to agent

An assistant responds when you ask.

An agent acts on its own to achieve a goal.

The difference is huge:

Assistant	Agent
”Draft this email"	"Manage my inbox"
"Search for info on X"	"Research X and alert me if there’s news"
"Analyze this data"	"Monitor these KPIs and act on anomalies”

The assistant does what you ask. The agent does what you need.

The number that matters

78% of executives agree: digital ecosystems will need to be built for both AI agents and humans in the next 3-5 years.

This isn’t a distant prediction. It’s 2028-2030.

This means:

• Systems that interact with agents, not just people
• APIs designed for machines to use, not humans
• Workflows where humans supervise, not execute

The window of opportunity

If this happens in 3-5 years, what does it mean for you today?

If you work in tech/data: You have 3-5 years to learn how to build systems that work WITH agents. Not just use them. Design them, integrate them, supervise them.

If you work in anything else: You have 3-5 years to learn to work with agents before it’s mandatory. Like learning Excel in the 90s. Those who learned early had decades of advantage.

If you lead a team or company: You have 3-5 years to redesign processes before competitors do. Whoever automates first, wins.

What changes

Today, value is in executing tasks.

Tomorrow, value will be in:

• Defining objectives clearly for agents
• Supervising that they do the right thing
• Designing the systems where they operate
• Deciding what to automate and what not to

Repetitive manual work disappears.

Design, supervision, and decision work increases.

Why 3-5 years and not tomorrow

Current agents work, but:

• They make mistakes
• They need constant supervision
• They don’t scale well
• They’re expensive for complex tasks

In 3-5 years:

• They’ll be more reliable
• They’ll need less supervision
• They’ll scale better
• They’ll be much cheaper

We’re in the “works but with limitations” phase. Like the internet in 1995. Like smartphones in 2008.

What to do now

1. Use current agents even if imperfect. Claude with tools, GPT with plugins, coding agents… Get used to supervising instead of executing.

2. Identify repetitive tasks in your work. Those are the first to be automated. Better you automate them before someone else does.

3. Learn to define clear objectives. A poorly directed agent is worse than no agent. The skill of specifying what you want becomes critical.

4. Stay current. This changes every month. What’s impossible today is trivial tomorrow.

The uncomfortable question

In 5 years, there will be two types of professionals:

• Those who learned to work with agents when it was still optional
• Those who had to learn when it was already mandatory

The first group will have 5 years of advantage.

The second will be competing for the same positions as people with much more experience.

Which group do you want to be in?