Jacob Andra

Thanks to @Neumontu for having me out to give a talk on advanced harness engineering for AI systems. Harness engineering will be one of the defining disciplines of the coming years, and @TalbotWest4093 is leading the way.

Talbot West CEO @jacobandra presented to a large group of leaders in higher education about the future of the sector, and the impacts AI is already having and will continue to have. The presentation was well received.

Talbot West CEO @jacobandra joined Dr. Amy Cook on the go to market podcast to discuss AI snake oil and what business executives should be asking to evaluate vendors and truly get value from AI technologies. Links to the show in the comments below.

@troyaitken_ Setup

I run a $110K/month agency with 6 AI employees. They have names. Personalities. Jobs. One writes content. One monitors infrastructure. One runs campaigns. Here's the full setup: Most people use AI like a search engine. I use it like a staff. The difference: context files that make each AI know its job, its boundaries, and me. USER.md — Who You Are Teaches AI everything about you: → Name, location, timezone → Your business and goals → Working patterns and communication style The AI can't serve you if it doesn't know you. SOUL.md — Personality & Principles The AI's operating system: → Core truths ("Be resourceful before asking") → Communication style and banned phrases → Boundaries and business context This turns a generic assistant into YOUR assistant. IDENTITY.md — Who the AI Is Give it an identity: → Name (mine is Jarvis) → Role (chief of staff, content writer, etc.) → Vibe and operating principle An AI with identity has consistency. AGENTS.md — The Operating Manual The longest and most important file: → Startup routine (what to read first) → Memory system (where to log, what to remember) → Safety rules and learned mistakes MEMORY.md — Long-Term Memory Persists across sessions: → Discovered preferences → Business learnings → Key decisions made Without this, you restart from zero every conversation. TOOLS.md — Integration Notes Your AI's reference manual: → API endpoints and workflows → Team contacts → What works and what breaks Skills — Specialized Instructions Auto-trigger based on keywords: → Content generation → Sales follow-ups → Lead enrichment → Customer onboarding The Agent Squad I don't have one AI. I have six: → Jarvis — Chief of Staff → Loki — Content (8am + 3pm daily) → Ivan — Infrastructure (20K email accounts) → Hades — GTM campaigns → Scrapy — Data extraction → Trigify — LinkedIn scraping Each has its own context, memory, and job. How They Work 8am — Loki writes 5 tweet drafts 9am — Posts to Slack 10am — I approve 2. Done. No prompting. It runs on a schedule. Safety My AI once bought 164 domains without asking. $1,640 gone. Now I have: → Trusted user verification → Financial action gates → Prompt injection defense → Regressions (mistakes become rules) Proactive Behaviors The AI doesn't wait: → Cron jobs for scheduled tasks → Heartbeats for check-ins This is the difference between a tool and an employee. The Stack: → OpenClaw (open source orchestration) → Context files → Skills → Agent squad → Tool integrations → Cron + heartbeats Everyone's sharing AI setup guides. That's a good start. This is what happens when you go 10x further. Not a chatbot. A system that runs while you sleep. Like + comment "setup" and I'll DM you the full template.

@Suryanshti777 Claude

🚨 SHOCKING: 99% people using Claude are barely scratching the surface. Right now, the entire internet is screaming “Claude, Claude, Claude”... But here’s the truth: just chatting with it won’t change your life. To unlock its real power, you need to master: • agentic workflows • Claude Code • skills, automation & system-level usage I spent 100+ hours researching and compiled the best Claude resources from across the entire internet — videos, repos, guides, books, and papers. I’ll give it to only 4,500 people. To get it: 1. Follow me MUST (so i can dm) 2. Comment “Claude” 3. I’ll DM you the document 📩 If you don’t follow or comment, you won’t receive it.

I enjoyed moderating this Silicon Valley panel on AI beyond the hype.

Today at the Naval Postgraduate School, I discussed some important implications of AI on national security with Professor Rodrigo Nieto Gomez. Topics included deepfakes, cyberresilience, and the need for standards for interoperable, modular AI capabilities. #ai #cybersecurity

“Americans look out for each other.” Very impressed with Secretary Panetta as a person and as an exemplar of civic leadership. In his CHDS fireside chat with Evy Poumpouras, Sec Panetta radiated the sort of bipartisan public service and leadership that we need more of.

I enjoyed discussing enterprise digital transformation with @cydtetro on The Applied AI Podcast. Link in comments.

I’m honored to be joining the advisory board of ⁦@Neumontu⁩

I’ll be speaking in February at the Naval Postgraduate School. It will be a fireside chat, exploring the intersections of AI and national security.

Thrilled to announce that Talbot West is partnering with Lucidity Sciences to bring our AI orchestration expertise to align with their Lumawarp machine learning engine. Lumawarp is 7% more accurate than other leading machine learning models, while being 300x faster.

Lucidity Sciences is the only company to fundamentally innovate in the algorithmic layer of AI. Stay tuned: Talbot West and Lucidity collaboration. #AI #ML #digitaltransformation #appliedAI #artificialintelligence #machinelearning

I enjoyed facilitating an applied AI roundtable discussion with experts and business owners as part of the governor’s AI Summit here in Salt Lake City.

Excited to welcome Steve Larsen on board as Talbot West’s new VP of sales. Steve brings a robust enterprise sales background and will help take the Talbot West message to the right stakeholders to accelerate our journey.

Large language models are awesome and they also suck. Stephen Karafiath and I wrestle with them every day. We advise Talbot West clients on how to use them and how not to use them. Not enough people understand that they are just one tool in a very large toolbox. #LLMs

My Talbot West cofounder Steve and I met with KPMG to learn about their AI platform and how we can use it for their clients. We also discussed how we can complement KPMG offerings. #AI #DigitalTransformation #MergersAndAcquisitions #genAI #TalbotWest #JacobAndra #Consulting

I enjoyed visiting the Palladyne AI headquarters yesterday. This company is developing really cool AI interfaces for robotics systems. There is a natural synergy between them and Talbot West. They optimize production, we optimize company-wide systems and processes. #ai #ml

@Krishnasagrawal What do you define “AI agent” as? AI that can complete a task autonomously? Or some other benchmark?

🚀 The Complete Guide to Building AI Agents, From Zero to Production AI Agents are the next big leap in automation, they can think, plan, and execute tasks just like humans 🤖 This guide takes you from basics to building real, production-ready AI Agents — step by step! To get your copy 👇 Like & Repost Comment “AI” Follow (so I can DM you the guide)