3 Things Agentic AI Exposes About AI Ops

The conversation is shifting: the world is transitioning from “Generative AI” to “Agentic AI”... and if you’re an ops nerd like us, this is your moment. 

Because once the conversation shifts from “AI that assists” to “AI that acts,” the truth about AI becomes obvious. 

It was never about the tools.

It was always about designing workflows, systems and repeated behavior that your team actually runs on. 

Let’s get into the three things this shift exposes about AI Operations.

#1. At the heart of every agentic workflow is… a process map. 

Look closely at OpenAI’s Agent Builder interface.

It doesn’t look magical.
It doesn’t look overly technical.

In fact, it looks like a process map!
A flowchart.
A sequence of steps you are forced to define.

This reveals the thing most teams like to skip over: Before AI or an AI agent can do the work, you have to define the work.

(hey AI Operators 👋) 

Which leads us to…

#2. The hard part about AI, isn’t AI. 

Agent Builder’s whole pitch is basically, “Go from idea → working agent with almost no friction.”

The Ramp team even shared:

“Agent Builder transformed what once took months of complex orchestration, custom code, and manual optimizations into just a couple of hours.”

The message is loud and clear – AI implementation is getting easier, fast. 

This echoes a sentiment we’ve been sharing with clients for years:

The hard part about AI isn’t actually the AI.
It’s the ops and people side of AI. 

It’s the messy internal logic.
It’s getting alignment on the process.
Alignment on what’s important and what “done” and “good” look like.

The friction teams may now experience isn’t that AI isn’t ready.
But rather, their workflows aren’t ready for AI.

3. Playbooks are here to stay.

You want to know the fastest way for you and your team to start leveraging AI agents?

Well, it’s ironic. 

You start by putting the tools down and writing your playbooks. 

Agentic AI is exposing the real backbone of AI Operations lies in:

• Clear workflows

• Explicit logic

• Teams who know how their work gets done

Write your playbooks and the agents will follow.  🤖

Quick Ask - Playbook Examples

We know so many people in our community loved the quickstart Playbook template we shared. And we hear the next thing you want to see are playbook examples. 

Help us help you: What playbook examples would be helpful for you to see?

What processes do you want to create playbooks for?

Reply to this email and let us know!

LINKS

For your reading list 📚

AI in time for the holidays:

• Coca-Cola is back with another AI-generated holiday ad, but some glitches are causing people to do a double-take. 

• Target released AI-powered shopping features in their app to support a process on everyone’s mind this time of year: gift giving!

• Google wants you to let their AI agents handle the hardest parts of your holiday shopping.

In other news:

• The latest AI battle is happening in the one app you use more than any other: your browser. Here’s why AI companies are trying to gain access to the most powerful text box on your computer.

• With political neutrality under scrutiny, Anthropic is revealing how it’s redesigning Claude to treat opposing viewpoints with equal depth and accuracy.

That's all!

We'll see you again soon. Thoughts, feedback, and questions are much appreciated - respond here or shoot us a note at [email protected].

Cheers,

🪄 The AI Exchange Team