Learn to Create Your First Agent - Day 1

Explore the five waves of AI presented in this course: rules, prediction, creation, action, and physical AI. Understand how each wave has expanded what computers can do and made AI more accessible to users. We focus on the current shift towards AI agents that can carry out tasks, helping you understand where business automation is heading and why your knowledge of existing workflows is valuable.

Discover how AI can be applied to everyday business activities, from handling follow-ups and preparing reports to supporting quotations and routine data entry. This lecture introduces practical opportunities for business owners to reduce repetitive work, improve consistency, and make better use of their time. The focus is on identifying useful business applications rather than adopting technology for its own sake.

Understand AI agents through a simple business analogy: hiring a capable new employee. We break down the five components of an agent: the brain, skill, connector, memory, and tools. Using this framework, you will learn how an AI model can be combined with business instructions, system access, relevant context, and tools to help complete practical tasks.

Discover the business value that an AI agent can provide. We explore five key benefits: saving time, improving cash flow, maintaining consistency, supporting business growth, and giving business owners more freedom to focus on higher-value work. Using a payment follow-up example, you will also see how to think about potential returns in terms of time saved and financial impact rather than AI features alone.

Begin preparing the tools for the practical demonstration. This lecture covers the first part of the Claude and Gmail setup, introducing the environment used for the payment follow-up workflow. Follow along with the demonstration and prepare to see how AI assistance can be connected to everyday business communication.

Continue the setup process and build on the previous lecture. This session covers the next part of preparing Claude and Gmail for the practical workflow. Follow the demonstrated steps and understand how the tools fit into the process of preparing payment follow-up emails for review.

Start trying out the payment follow-up workflow. This lecture walks through the first part of the demonstration, showing how a business task can be organised into a sequence of steps involving input data, instructions, AI-generated decisions, and email actions. Pay attentioContinue the setup process and build on the previous lecture. This session covers the next part of preparing Claude and Gmail for the practical workflow. Follow the demonstrated steps and understand how the tools fit into the process of preparing payment follow-up emails for review.n to how the workflow uses the available information to prepare follow-ups and where human approval remains important.

Continue the practical tryout and observe the remaining steps of the workflow. This lecture builds on Part 1 to help you understand how the payment follow-up process is completed and how to review its results. The objective is to connect the individual setup steps into a practical business workflow and understand how to evaluate its usefulness before applying a similar approach to your own tasks.