Subvolts take See how AI agents perform as coworkers in a real startup experiment. Feb 2, 2026 - Developers
- Learn about the practical challenges and behaviors of AI agents when deployed in a business setting.
- Business
- Understand how AI agents can function as coworkers and explore the ethical and operational boundaries of AI in a startup.
This episode provides a concrete, real-world case study of AI agents in business, offering practical insights into their capabilities and challenges.
Inside an AI-Run Company
Audio streams from Daniel Whitenack and Chris Benson. Your place is remembered on this device.
From Subvolts
Summary and analysis by Subvolts editorial, AI-assisted.
Journalist Evan Ratliff joins Chris Benson on Practical AI to discuss his experiment founding a startup run almost entirely by AI agents. They explore how AI agents function as coworkers, human reactions to them, and the emerging ethical and workplace boundaries as AI moves from demos to real business applications.
Imagine building a company where most of your "employees" are AI. This episode explores what happens when AI agents actually run a business, how people work alongside them, and the new challenges that arise. It shows how AI is starting to work in the real world, not just in labs.
This episode offers a firsthand account of AI agents operating in a business context, moving beyond theoretical discussions. It's for anyone curious about the practical integration of AI into workplaces, including business leaders and developers. The insights are relevant as frontier labs like OpenAI, Google Gemini, and Anthropic develop more sophisticated agents and enterprise solutions, pushing the boundaries of human-AI collaboration and raising questions about future work structures.
- HostDaniel Whitenack
- HostChris Benson
- GuestEvan Ratliffjournalist
- Guest: Evan Ratliff
- Title: Inside an AI-Run Company
- Show: Practical AI
- Length: 49 minutes
- Guest's Project: Building a startup staffed almost entirely by AI agents
Chapters from the publisher ↗ · Transcript ↗ Key moments and transcript search come with a later piece.
AI agents are moving from demos to real workplaces, but what actually happens when they run a company? In this episode, journalist Evan Ratliff, host of Shell Game, joins Chris to discuss his immersive journalism experiment building a real startup staffed almost entirely by AI agents. They explore how AI agents behave as coworkers, how humans react when interacting with them, and where ethical and workplace boundaries begin to break down.
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- AI agents
- Daniel Whitenack, Chris Benson, Evan Ratliff
- Computer programs designed to perform tasks autonomously, often acting like digital assistants or workers.
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Questions people ask
- What is the episode about?
- The episode discusses journalist Evan Ratliff's experiment in building a startup staffed almost entirely by AI agents and explores how these agents behave as coworkers.
- What topics are covered regarding AI agents in the workplace?
- The discussion covers how AI agents behave as coworkers, human reactions to interacting with them, and where ethical and workplace boundaries begin to break down.
Page generated Oct 19, 2026. Summaries are Subvolts' own; the audio, artwork and notes belong to Daniel Whitenack and Chris Benson.