Yesterday, I ran an AI Agent strategy workshop with the senior leadership team of a travel business. Two things stood out.
💡 The potential: They watched an AI Agent log into their custom CMS and complete a task that only three of the twelve people in the room knew how to do. An absolute lightbulb moment. When the agent was asked to repeat the task, it had learned from the first attempt - and finished in a quarter of the time. Suddenly, the room could see how AI agents might transform every corner of the business.
🧠 Knowledge sharing: Leaders shared how their teams already use AI. In minutes, it was clear: the real value was in learning from each other. It showed just how important it is to make space for exchanges like this.
Which industries will AI agents disrupt?
By coincidence, this morning I came across an article in the FT about how online travel platforms are preparing for the rise of AI agents.
Travel is a perfect case study: a complex sector with multiple suppliers and costly systems that are slow to adapt - exactly the kind of environment AI agents are set to transform.
But the potential goes far beyond travel. Any industry weighed down by complexity, legacy systems, or high integration costs is ripe for AI agents.
Why AI agents matter
They:
• Don’t need traditional UIs - they work behind the scenes
• Move between tools and APIs without deep integrations
• Are faster to build, easier to test, cheaper to scale
The right question isn’t “What tool should we build?” It’s:
• “What outcome do we want?”
• “Can an AI agent deliver it for us?”
Looking ahead
As the FT article explains, it won’t just be businesses using AI agents - your customers will be using them as well. Mark Zuckerberg has publicly said he believes AI agents will become as common as phone numbers and email addresses.
So, the real question is: how do we prepare before our customers and our competitors start using them?
If you’re suffering from the “I don’t know where to start” problem, that’s normal. It’s new for all of us. A good first step is simply putting AI on your weekly agenda. In upcoming issues of The Signal, we’ll share more practical ways to explore and apply AI agents.
Read more:
AI strategy workshops
By Good Signals
Online travel platforms prepare for rise of artificial intelligence ‘agents’
By Rafe Rosner-Uddin and Mari Novik on the FT
