This tech founder says prompting AI agents is a lot like managing people

The champion managers of AI agents whitethorn beryllium group who person already managed humans, 1 AI founder said.

Ivan Burazin, the cofounder and CEO of New York-based AI patient Daytona, has a squad of astir 30 group crossed teams successful the US and Europe. He told Business Insider that successful caller months, he's pushed his unit to build much AI agents; his 16 engineers each tally an mean of 5 agents, and nary 1 astatine the institution writes codification anymore.

That's brought 1 point to ray for him: Staff who person managed others are measurement amended astatine prompting AI agents to get precisely what they want than those pinch nary people-management experience.

"We've recovered that group who negociate group and understand really to pass what they want — inputs versus outputs — they're overmuch amended astatine moving agents," he said.

On the different hand, an technologist who's not managed anyone, moreover if they're awesome astatine their job, is wired for illustration an individual contributor, Ivan said. He said they implicitly expect that group — and agents — will understand what they're asking for, and get stressed and disappointment erstwhile it doesn't cookware out.

"And truthful they ne'er deliberation astir really to communicate, 'This is what I want. This is really I expect you to do it, aliases what I deliberation the result should be,'" he added.

That said, Burazin doesn't support the thought of group managers alone. He said managers pinch nary method knowledge — specified arsenic successful trading aliases successful engineering — are not useful, and everyone should beryllium getting their hands soiled pinch existent work.

Burazin and his cofounders, Vedran Jukić and Goran Draganić, founded Daytona successful 2023, which provides unafraid sandbox infrastructure for companies to tally AI agents and AI-generated codification successful isolated environments. The institution precocious raised $48 cardinal successful a Series B backing round, according to Crunchbase.

Burazin's comments align pinch really managerial roles successful tech companies person changed successful caller years.

After an era dubbed "The Great Flattening," successful which companies for illustration Meta, Amazon, and Google laid disconnected mediate guidance for efficiency, more tech leaders are now juggling coding and merchandise improvement alongside unit management.

Burazin says he supports his unit moving aggregate AI agents, because it helps him support his squad small. Hiring astatine Daytona is "very slow," he said, because each caller prosecute adds a furniture of complexity.

"Agents thief pinch that because you tin person smaller quality teams, hence the connection is smaller, and you tin proceed to beryllium fast," he said.