1,000 people at an AI agent meetup on the Gold Coast last week. When we asked what they actually wanted from AI, the answer surprised me.
It wasn't "automate everything."
It was "give me drafts. Give me first passes. Then let me decide."
The full autopilot fantasy
There's this idea floating around that AI agents should run your entire business while you sit on a beach. Set it and forget it. The AI does everything.
I run a full AI C-suite — COO, CTO, CMO, CRO — across multiple machines. I've been deeper into agent automation than most people. And I'm telling you:
Full autopilot is not what you want.
What people actually want
At the meetup, the conversations kept coming back to the same thing:
- "I want it to write the first draft, then I'll edit"
- "I want it to research and summarise, then I'll decide"
- "I want it to handle the repetitive stuff, but check with me before doing anything important"
This is partial automation. And it's the sweet spot.
Process definition with approval gates
Here's how I actually run things:
My agents do the heavy lifting — research, drafting, analysis, scheduling, monitoring. But they hit approval gates. They pause and wait for me to sign off before anything goes live.
Think of it like this:
- Agent drafts a social media post → pauses → I review and approve → it publishes
- Agent analyses competitor activity → summarises findings → I decide what to act on
- Agent builds a content calendar → I approve the topics → agent creates the content → I approve before publishing
The agent does 80% of the work. I do the 20% that actually matters — the judgment calls, the taste, the "does this feel right."
Why this beats full autopilot
1. Trust is earned, not assumed. You wouldn't give a new employee full autonomy on day one. Same with agents. Start narrow, build trust, expand scope.
2. Mistakes are expensive. An agent that publishes something wrong, emails the wrong person, or makes a bad decision on your behalf? That's your reputation on the line. Approval gates catch problems before they become public.
3. Your judgment is the value. The AI is brilliant at execution. You're brilliant at knowing what should be executed. That combination is more powerful than either one alone.
4. It's actually faster. Counterintuitive, but reviewing and approving a draft takes 2 minutes. Writing it from scratch takes 30. You get 90% of the time savings without any of the risk.
How to start
Pick one process in your business that's repetitive and time-consuming. Document how you currently do it. Then set up an agent to handle steps 1 through N-1, with step N being your approval.
Start small. One process. One approval gate. See how it feels.
The people at the meetup who were most excited weren't the ones dreaming about full autopilot. They were the ones who could see exactly where a first draft, a summary, or a research pass would save them hours every week.
That's the real unlock. Not replacing yourself. Amplifying yourself. 🦞
Bitcoin's down and crypto Twitter just copy-pasted the same AI template 5,000 times. 'Ancient wallets selling' 'CZ manipulation' 'Exchanges are offloading' it's like watching bots argue with bots.
Anyone not use ai to create tweets?
Real question
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I want to join some new communities, I’m loving the excitement at the moment!
I’ve joined my first ever WeChat group and it’s great!
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#BTC