The best way to learn about agentic AI? Just build
This article was originally published in Leadership + AI, a new LinkedIn newsletter from the Kellogg School of Management that helps leaders learn and lead confidently with AI. Subscribe today.
By Sébastien Martin, associate professor of operations
AI is moving very fast, and many of us have imposter syndrome as we try to keep up.
But the flip side is that, with each use, you gain experience with the new tools, feel more comfortable and see how they have value for you.
The most powerful tools have reached a level where they can teach you how to use them. That’s an incredibly empowering thing. It’s like having access to a genie in the bottle you can ask for anything you want. You can overcome imposter syndrome just through learning by doing.
Turning uncertainty into opportunity
Whether you are a CEO or a business-school student, it can be tough to navigate the uncertainty around AI. It can create a lot of anxiety. But it’s not that other people know what they’re doing and you don’t. Everybody is in the same boat.
Navigating that uncertainty can be an opportunity. And when it’s uncertainty for everyone, it’s just adventure. It’s great to live in a world where everything is new. Knowledge is right there— you just need to be curious, open-minded, and a bit more confident than other people to access it.
So trust your own judgment more than the people who tell you they know better. If you see something missing, build it. If something feels broken, build something better.
Building in the classroom
Last fall, I launched the lab section of Kellogg’s new AI Foundations for Managers course. The philosophy of the class was based on this same premise: learning by doing.
In the first year, I asked 280 students to each build their own agentic AI project in just five weeks. The results were astonishing. Students built fundamentally new things, some leading to startups. One student built an agent that reminds patients to take their medication and checks in on how they feel. Another built one that helps people fall back in love with reading. A third built one that finds the single small step to take when a goal feels too big to start.
“The most powerful tools have reached a level where they can teach you how to use them. That’s an incredibly empowering thing.”
The students brought varying degrees of prior technical knowledge to the class. Some got into the nuts and bolts of AI models and how they work. Others had never written a line of code. But these two groups shared a common reaction to this lightning-speed project: empowerment.
Now they know what this technology can and cannot do. They know now that it’s not a crazy, mysterious thing. They were able to do it themselves. And now they have more intuition about how AI might impact the things about which they truly care.
So, what should you do now?
The success of the course is confirmation that there is so much to do and discover. If you lean into trying AI tools, there are so many good ideas that are ripe for the taking.
We know AI is coming, and you can see all the ways your job might change or all the risks that it might bring with it. You’ll see only the negatives if you don’t try the technology and realize all the new ways it could help you, create value for you and make things more fun.
Here’s my one piece of advice: stop only chatting with AI and start working with it. The most powerful tools today are computer agents. A computer agent is an AI that sits on your computer and works on your files with you, instead of just answering in a chat window. It can only touch what you choose to give it, so you stay in control. That sounds like a small difference, but it changes everything, and I’ll let you find out why.
So, here’s exactly what I’d do. Download a computer agent, like OpenAI’s Codex or Anthropic’s Claude Cowork. Give it access to a single folder on your computer and start there. Pick something real and small: ask it to clean up a messy Excel file with you. Then try teaching it a “skill,” so it can do that same task on its own next time. And whenever you get stuck, or something doesn’t make sense, just ask the AI. It’s the best teacher you’ll ever have.
Trust me: spend 3- minutes a day, and within two weeks you’ll be doing things you didn’t think were possible. Who is better than you to figure out what AI can do for you?
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