Ep 849: AI Agents in 2026 Explained: What They Are and When You Should Use Them (Start Here Series Vol 8)
episode
Everyday AI Podcast – An AI and ChatGPT Podcast
30 min
2 speakers
5 chapters
transcribed 24 days ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to the Everyday AI podcast. My name is Jordan Wilson, and for the past three and a half years, we put out more than 800 episodes. Yet, one of the most common questions I get, I didn't really have an answer for. Where do I start on the Everyday AI podcast? And that's why we started the Start Here series. And with Fall now back in full swing, the Everyday AI podcast is Is going back to school and playing back the entire Start Here series from front to back. We've hit pause on our normal Monday to Friday programming to run back our most popular series ever for the next 30 days. We made the Start Here series for beginners and AI champions alike. So whether you're just trying to get a grasp on large language models or grappling with the best coding harness for multi-agentic.
Workflows, the Start Here series covers it all. Plain language, no jargon, and easy to follow along each day. So make sure to subscribe to the podcast and check back each day for new insights day by day. The series is a culmination of spending more than 10,000 hours covering generative AI over the past three and a half years. So you don't want to miss a single episode of the Start Here series. Let's get into it. Whether you're newer to AI or if you consider yourself an AI expert. We're all probably thinking the same thing. AI agents, AI agents, AI agents. That's because, well, we've been promised. That AI agents would Take over, maybe in a good way, maybe in a bad way, yet that promise never really came to fruition.
I mean, we heard it. In the early Chat GPT days, 2023, 2024, 2025 was supposed to be the year of the agents, but it wasn't. But guess what? We're there. I think we've actually arrived with some of the recent AI updates from the big companies in anthropic open AI, Google, Microsoft, even. crazy viral open source projects like Open Claw. I think now the long vision that we've been pitched of AI agents is here, but it's all happening. at once. Like I said, I've been doing this everyday AI thing for three years. And at least when it comes to AI agent development, the last month has been as eventful as the other 2.9 years combined. Don't worry. Even if you are brand new or If you're an expert. That's what we're going to tackle on today's show.
We're going to hopefully get you caught up, tackle AI agents from all angles, and do so in a Hopefully quick, beginner friendly way. So This is the Start Here series and we're going to be going over AI agents in 2026. What they are. And when you should use them. All right. I'm excited for this one. I hope you are too. What's going on? Welcome to the Start Here series. My name is Jordan Wilson and the Start Here series, well, I created it because after 700 plus episodes of the Everyday AI podcast, I didn't have a good answer for the most common question I got. People say, hey Jordan, looks like a lot of great information here on your podcast. Where do I start? Well, you start here with the Start Here series.
And this is volume eight in the Start Here series. But this is an essential podcast series to both learn the AI basics and to double down on your AI knowledge. And the way that you should really do that is make sure you go to starthearseries.com. That is Going to give you free access to our inner circle community in our start here series space. So you can go catch up on all of everything in the series in one place, a bunch of additional resources, resources that we've thrown together, all available for you right there. So Uh, like I said, whether you're brand new, an expert, it doesn't matter. Go join now like a thousand people that are already in the community and listen to all of the start here series.
Also, I have to put this out there because it's important. Make sure you also go listen to episodes 712 and 713. That is our 2026 AI predictions and roadmap series. You know, twenty six kind of bold predictions on AI, and at least a third of them are about agents. All right. So Uh, and if you missed our last start here series, that was volume seven, where we went over context engineering, how to get expert level outputs from AI chatbots.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–6:04
2
What exactly is an AI agent and how does it differ from a traditional chatbot?
6:04–8:32
3
How do autonomous AI agents function as independent workers in a workflow?
8:32–11:58
4
What are the challenges and decision‑making limits of agentic AI?
11:58–22:23
5
Why is “shadow AI” a growing security risk for enterprises?
22:23–30:23
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Everyday AI Podcast – An AI and ChatGPT Podcast
Ep 860: Managing the AI Capability Gap: AI Is More than Ready. Most Companies are Not (Start Here Series Vol 19)
Ep 859: The Vibe Coding Boom: Why Vibe Coding isn't Going Away and How it's Both Good and Bad (Start Here Series Ep 18)
Ep 858: Responsible AI Playbook: What It Means and 5 Moves to Ensure Your AI Strategy Survives (Start Here Series Vol 17)
Ep 857: From Chatbots to Super Agents: The 11 AI Tool Categories Explained (Start Here Series Ep 16)
Ep 856: Everything Is Fake: How Your Company Can Leverage Human Expertise and Fight AI Workslop (Start Here Series Ep 15)
Ep 855: AI Governance in Plain English: 5 AI Rules Every Company Needs to follow (Start Here Series Vol 14)