3 things I learnt from building my first AI agent for competitive intelligence

Over the past week, I built my first AI agent. I did not want to be that armchair expert without any real experience. Here's how it went down...

Why Start With Competitive Intelligence?

1. It's a Natural Data Detective 🔍
   One of AI agents' key strength over RPA is its ability to handle unstructured data. And competitive intelligence involves lots of unstructured data- parsing all that information, synthesising and summarizing them to understand the target industry.
2. It Follows a Clear Playbook 📋
   Like a well-trained employee, these agents excel at following structured processes. No need for complex decision-making in their first assignment!
3. It Stays Within Boundaries 🚧
   These agents are not expected to interact with other humans or execute any transaction. Perfect if you're new to AI agents like me and not want to take any unnecessary risk!

Surprising Discoveries 💡

1. The Power of Role Assignment
   Remember how different departments perform better with clear roles and responsibilities? Same with AI agents! Just as you wouldn't ask your Finance team to handle Marketing campaigns, giving your AI agent a specific "identity" and role dramatically improves its performance.
2. Infrastructure Matters More Than You Think
   While the AI itself is impressive, I spent the bulk of my time fixing the plumbing around the agents. Think of fixing wrongly formatted JSON outputs, or trying to access websites. Which leads to my next point-
3. Websites in 2024:
   Great for humans, headache for AI! 🤯 Imagine sending your AI agent to a website that's like a carnival - flashy, noisy, and full of distractions. Yep, I'm talking about those navigation bars and beautiful CSS- awesome for our experience but terribly messy for our AI agents! I'm betting we'll soon see websites with a "business casual" version for humans and a "just the facts" version for AI agents.

Business Implications & Opportunities 🎯

What does this mean for you as an enterprise leader?

• Potential for significant efficiency gains in research and analysis
• Need for thoughtful integration with existing systems
• Opportunity to redesign digital assets for both human and AI consumption

Ready to Explore AI Agents for Your Business? 🚀

If you're curious about how AI agents could transform specific aspects of your operations, let's connect. Share your business challenges in the comments, and let's explore how these digital assistants might help solve them.

Remember: The goal isn't to replace human intelligence but to augment it with tools that make our work more efficient and impactful.