Can AI agents help?
Lately, there has been a lot of attention to “Solopreneur”, or a person who creates a gradual business using digital tools and platforms to carry out business activities. It is even proposed to see a $ 1 billion company built and run by a Soloprene. Is this viable? Can a person – or a very small group – really do it all, with help from an Ai army AI?
There are many extremely small, well -funded and ambitious businesses out there. In the United States alone there are at least 10,000 companies with fewer than 10 employees who have received significant investment or business funding in millions of dollars, according to estimates at Crunchbase.
One can, at least theoretically, build a fairly large company with little or no human help, according to the top supporter of Solopreneur Tim Cortinovis. It is possible to build a huge, competitive company with only AI tools and freelancers, explained to his recent book, Unicorn single-hand: How to build a billion companyas well as recent podcast. With the help of AI agents, “you can handle everything,” he said.
The idea of a small but profitable business built around digital technologies has been filled for some time. Back in 2009, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman called it an element of “Do-it-yourself economy“In which business or corporate types could collect the online services they need on the internet to start new products and services.
How did this change in the last decade and a half? Throughout the industry, especially among the businessmen themselves, there is an agreement that it is now large -scale solopreneuring, but with warnings.
“Past businessmen needed three months. Today’s businessmen need architecture,” he said David BrudenellExecutive Director at Decidr.Ai, Australia’s only AI company. “If you can design a business where data creates insight, insight activates action and action returns to performance, all without human friction, then you are no longer limited by size.
While the idea of a large business run by a solopreneur or very small group is feasible, “not for everyone and not in every position,” he said Alexandr KorshykovFounder and CEO of Dreamx, a Ukraine UX/UI Design and Development Company. “Today, thanks to AI, automation and worldwide access to markets, it is possible to build a large -scale company with a small group or even solo.
A leader cannot afford to return and put his business on an automatic pilot, but Korshykov warned. “You must have a clear vision, systematic thinking, procedure management skills, strong self-management and willingness to transfer technical duties to engines and routine tasks to freelancers or a micro-group.”
In particular, Ai-AGentic AI-takes self-sufficiency to the next level, Cortinovis suggested. It starts with a management agent, acting as a supervisor and “the brain of others, you have under -the -road undergoing and you can give subcutaneous access to customer information, customer addresses and so on.”
And presto! An increasing scalable business. But is it viable? “AI undoubtedly removes many of the obstacles to escalating a business with limited resources,” he said John JacksonAn experienced businessman and founder of HitProbe, a fraud protection platform. “But it is unlikely to see many of a person’s unicorn.”
What is most likely, Jackson, continued: “is that we will begin to see very lean businesses with small groups as small as three to five people escalating levels that would previously require a whole workforce.”
Initially, these are likely to be technology or SAAS companies “, but there are also potentially some huge opportunities for disturbance in more traditional areas, such as control and compliance, which could see tiny companies competing with large established organizations,” Jackson added.
Support for the development of these very lean companies “will be activated by the smart use of AI tools for everything, from customer support and automated marketing platforms to low code manufacturers and clouded cloud infrastructure,” he said. “The winners will be the ones who are able to use these tools to give them a competitive advantage, allowing them to escalate without increasing their workforce and enabling them to act with much faster and agility from much larger companies.”
With current technologies-Cloud, AI, low code tools and other tools-“A unique founder can move faster and escalate more than ever,” he said Eli goodmanCEO and co -founder of Datos, a semrush company. “But building a billions of dollars still requires a combination of product market adjustment, relentless execution and a little luck.
What is often underestimated is “how many other people, directly or indirectly, contribute to the result,” Goodman said. “You may not have full -time staff, but you have contractors, advisers, legal, perhaps even immigration lawyers, depending on how you have built your team.
It is up to human professionals to oversee “businesses, sales, compliance and product” from a strategic perspective, Goodman added. “Yes, you can automate the execution, but you can’t automate the crisis.”
This is because “AI is not always reliable when it comes to high quality details, emotional interaction with customers or handling unforeseen situations,” Korshykov explained. “For example, creating content without processing is often superficial or off -target. There are still challenges with the complete automation of legal procedures, financial controls and strategic advice.
You can have all the state -of -the -art digital technology in the world, but nothing can succeed without the will of man to succeed. “What is the most important is not the tool. It is the management and hierarchy of time,” Goodman said. “You can assign outdoors, but you can’t assign your ability to discern what really matters.
The difference now-against a few years ago-“is the convergence of fundamental models, agents and cloud-native infrastructure,” Brudenell said. “We finally have tools that we can justify.
