There’s been no shortage of headlines about AI replacing jobs, building leaner companies, or the mythical one-person startup valued at $1 billion. But the more interesting story happening inside companies today is more complicated and far more compelling.
Founders aren’t just adopting AI agents. They’re rethinking how teams are structured entirely. Silos are breaking down. Roles are blending. And a new layer of digital teammates—with AI agents handling research, coordination, operations and more—is impacting how startup entrepreneurs get work done.
This isn’t theoretical. It’s happening now.
And it’s a pattern that keeps coming up in my conversations with founders, investors and operators.
For instance, Tatyana Mamut, co-founder and CEO of Wayfound, told me in this podcast how she’s running a company with 7 humans and 22 AI agents. It’s not an experiment. It’s a part of the company’s daily operations.
At Wayfound, those AI agents aren’t just background tools. They’re embedded directly into workflows. For example, Mamut shared how one of their agents—the investor update agent—handles routine inquiries from their investors. Instead of reaching out to her for basic financial updates, investors interact with the agent, which pulls real-time data from their dashboards and responds automatically.
“When investors have questions about our current financials or the state of the business, they don’t ask me, they ask our investor update agent,” she said.
Wayfound, which operates a platform that helps businesses manage AI agents alongside human teams, also uses a customer discovery agent that synthesizes conversations with customers. The agent identifies patterns and provides insights, work that used to fall on a CEO or business operations lead. Mamut said the agents help her manage the business better.
These AI agents are reshaping how human teams spend their time, which Mamut says frees up capacity for leadership, customer relationships and higher-value decisions. “The agents help me manage my business better,” she said.
Kira Noodleman, a partner at Bee Partners, predicts the next wave of disruptive startups will be “tiny superpower teams,” where a handful of people, amplified by AI agents, accomplish what used to take dozens. We unpacked this in an episode of The Venture Variety Show podcast that I dropped last week.
Meanwhile, Lucas Dickey, founder of Deepcast, is already redesigning his team around AI agents handling research, marketing and operations, allowing him to scale faster with fewer people. That conversation with Dickey and me is coming soon on my podcast.
It’s not just startups experimenting. Even VCs are rethinking what this means for company building. Joanne Chen, General Partner at Foundation Capital, recently described meeting a founder assembling teams like a movie crew, slotting AI agents into specific roles, completing projects, disbanding, repeating.
She wrote on LinkedIn:
“We’re seeing a new digital workforce layer: research agents, assistant agents, analyst agents. These digital workers are transforming internal communications, marketing execution, and customer success first. The competitive advantage is shifting to finding the optimal human-AI ratio for your specific challenges.”
AI agents aren’t some distant technology. They’re already affecting teams, operations and how leaders make decisions.
I explored these and other topics with Mamut on The AI Cognitive Shift, the podcast I co-host in collaboration with AiNews.com. Mamut, whose background blends anthropology and product leadership, and I discuss:
🟠 What a “multi-sapiens” workplace looks like when humans and AI agents work side by side
🟠 Why managing AI agents is about trust and culture, not just control
🟠 How AI agents are changing operations and the future of work
During our discussion, I was reminded of how AWS changed the economics of launching companies. Suddenly, capital-efficient teams had the ability to scale faster with fewer resources. And startups could scale faster with fewer resources and required less funding, which helped fuel the rise of new seed-stage investment layers.
I believe we’re going through similar shifts unfolding again in real time. But now what’s different is that the disruption starts inside the team itself.
When I asked Mamut (at about 22:40 in the podcast) how she sees this playing out over the next five to 10 years, her answer wasn’t about product features or market forecasts. She zeroed in on the societal impact.
“We are at the cusp of a huge evolutionary moment in human society. It’s like when multiple species of hominids lived side by side. Only now, instead of just Homo sapiens, we’ll have AI sapiens, too. We have to learn to live with this new intelligence. We have to create a culture that is adaptable to both AI and humans.”
It’s a reminder that what’s happening with AI agents isn’t just a tech trend. It’s a fundamental shift in how companies are structured, how teams are designed and, maybe, how society evolves.
🎧 Click on the video above to watch the full episode or follow The AI Cognitive Shift on the AiNews.com YouTube channel. You can also subscribe to The Venture Variety Show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube for more founder conversations.
The AI workforce is already here. But there’s still the question of how this will impact jobs. And I’m curious, when will investors expect startups to lean harder on AI agents to stay efficient? Or perhaps they are already.
So if your company is using AI agents in operations — or you’re experiencing this shift firsthand — I’d love to hear from you.
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