Dan Martell - April 16, 2026


99% of People Have No Idea What’s About to Happen With AI


Episode Stats


Length

14 minutes

Words per minute

200.55315

Word count

2,828

Sentence count

123

Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
00:00:00.240 99% of people have no idea what's about to happen with AI.
00:00:04.320 Most people think they're ahead because they switched to clod
00:00:06.880 or tried some new AI tool their cousin told them about.
00:00:09.520 That's like upgrading from a flip phone
00:00:11.200 to an iPhone 4 in 2026.
00:00:14.080 What's coming with AI is bigger than the internet,
00:00:17.120 bigger than smartphones, bigger than Bitcoin,
00:00:19.440 and the gap between people who see it
00:00:21.440 and the people who don't is growing every single day.
00:00:24.120 I build AI tools and AI companies all the time,
00:00:27.040 and what's shifted in the last few months
00:00:28.960 made me rethink everything about AI. How I work, how I build, and how I run my businesses.
00:00:34.060 So I'm going to show you where the three levels of AI exist right now. Where 99% of people are
00:00:39.480 getting stuck and they don't even know it. Where a small group of people are quietly getting ahead
00:00:44.020 of everyone else and it's growing. And the absolute cutting edge, the frontier, where the
00:00:49.860 next wave of billionaires is being made right now in real time, starting with level one.
00:00:54.880 The Assistants. Most people just figured out ChatGPT isn't the only AI tool. They're switching
00:01:01.180 from Claude, they're trying Gemini, maybe they heard of Perplexity. That's a good first step,
00:01:05.920 but it's just that, a first step. At this level, AI is a really smart assistant sitting next to you.
00:01:12.140 You can create images, research, emails, design, stuff that used to take hours or you had to pay
00:01:17.040 other people to do it. Done in minutes. Awesome sauce. But you still have to do the work. You
00:01:21.920 might be faster. You can do more, but you're still the one doing it. One of the most common questions
00:01:27.240 I get around AI is, what tools should I be using? Here's what I recommend right now. These are the
00:01:32.280 tools that I use. Screenshot this. Whisperflow helps me talk into it. AI assisted. It's a game
00:01:38.480 changer. Clawed Cowork, automate things on my computer. Manus, pretty much do end-to-end
00:01:43.700 complete workflows. Clawed Code, it's what I use to build custom solutions. And OpenClaw,
00:01:49.540 It's the wrapper around it all.
00:01:51.520 And I have my own variant called Apex.
00:01:53.560 We'll get to that in a second.
00:01:55.060 So now you just realize
00:01:56.120 you shouldn't just be using one AI tool.
00:01:58.320 You should be using many depending on the job.
00:02:00.620 Using those tools I just showed you, that's great.
00:02:03.240 They're incredible.
00:02:04.180 They will change your life.
00:02:05.720 But it's still just the beginning.
00:02:08.000 It's kind of like being in the kiddie pool.
00:02:10.320 And if you don't pay attention
00:02:11.560 to what I'm about to share next, you will fall behind.
00:02:14.160 I promise you this, there's no future where AI doesn't exist
00:02:18.480 and it does way more for you than what you think.
00:02:21.080 That's level one.
00:02:22.320 It's a start, but it's just the beginning
00:02:24.340 because level two, you stop doing the work entirely.
00:02:28.080 Level two is the agent operators.
00:02:30.600 ChatGPT has almost 6 billion visits a month.
00:02:34.040 A tool like Manus,
00:02:35.200 one of the most popular agentic AI tools in the world,
00:02:38.160 gets 18 million.
00:02:39.620 There's a big discrepancy.
00:02:41.160 That's only 0.3% of all those people
00:02:43.780 using ChatGPT on Manus.
00:02:45.700 Almost nobody is here yet.
00:02:47.500 Do you understand this?
00:02:48.480 Level two, you give AI a goal.
00:02:51.160 It plans the steps.
00:02:52.640 It executes the step.
00:02:54.340 It shares that with the people
00:02:55.920 you're about to share with it.
00:02:57.180 It gets feedback on what you shared
00:02:59.200 and then updates itself.
00:03:00.900 It's tools like Manus, CloudCode, CloudCowork,
00:03:04.400 entire projects are handled by the AI.
00:03:07.520 Essentially in that mode, you are the agent operator, okay?
00:03:11.340 You configure, you're like the project manager
00:03:13.460 of all these virtual AI agents.
00:03:15.380 You gotta pick the tool, you gotta sign at the job,
00:03:17.920 you gotta check the outputs,
00:03:19.200 you gotta figure out the data connectors.
00:03:20.900 And I even did a whole video on Manus
00:03:23.020 where you can use it to like run and manage your business.
00:03:25.600 I'll link it at the end.
00:03:26.540 So today I wanna break down what actually changes
00:03:28.980 between level one and level two.
00:03:30.660 First, let's compare the touch points,
00:03:32.180 like how many times you have to touch the AI
00:03:34.680 to get it to do the thing.
00:03:36.000 On level one, you have many
00:03:37.480 because you're still the person doing it all,
00:03:39.340 you just have different tools for every task.
00:03:41.300 On level two, you only have a few
00:03:43.340 because you have one specialty tool or AI per job type.
00:03:46.900 Now let's compare what the AI does.
00:03:48.820 See, in level one, it helps you do the work, right?
00:03:51.420 Write copy, do research, competitive analysis.
00:03:54.400 In level two, it does the whole work for you.
00:03:57.080 Not only the pieces,
00:03:58.520 but it puts the whole thing together
00:03:59.940 as a complete work product.
00:04:01.580 Now let's compare what you do in these levels.
00:04:04.380 Level one is everything.
00:04:06.240 If you don't do anything, it won't do anything, okay?
00:04:08.900 It might make you faster, but it's still you.
00:04:10.680 In level two, you can give it a prompt,
00:04:13.040 walk away, you manage the tool,
00:04:14.880 but when you come back, trust me,
00:04:16.080 it'll complete something for you it'll build you an app it'll create a presentation it'll do the
00:04:21.200 competitor analysis it does the whole thing you essentially just assign a task you check what it
00:04:25.680 did and then you can repeat it if you need to make some changes by the way if you're a business owner
00:04:30.160 and you need your team to get up to speed with ai i've got a free ai cheat sheet that covers
00:04:35.680 everything which tools to use the core principles behind ai how to prompt it so that you actually
00:04:41.040 get great responses so instead of you worrying about ai replacing your people how about get them
00:04:46.080 using it to get 10 times more done just dm me the word youtube ai on instagram and i'll send it to
00:04:51.280 you now that's level two and it's crazy in its own right okay you've gone from doing the work
00:04:56.160 to managing the workers and honestly most people would be set if they just stopped here but there's
00:05:01.440 another level and this next one will take you from having an advantage over most people to having one
00:05:07.200 over absolutely everyone level three is the organization level two was 0.3 percent of all
00:05:15.200 ai users level three is 0.05 almost no one on the planet is here yet imagine a whole team that works
00:05:24.080 around the clock not employees not freelancers ai agents and not just for business i'm talking
00:05:30.320 buying stuff for your house researching trips managing your calendar all of it how well remember
00:05:36.800 at the beginning i said don't use just one ai tool for everything that was kind of a bit of a lie
00:05:42.320 because where the world is going you actually talk to one ai agent and it creates the right
00:05:48.160 sub agents for the job in this future that's today never touch another tool again one ai one guy my
00:05:56.240 guy's name's kai who named him he did i know it sounds crazy and kai creates sub agents that are
00:06:03.680 specialists doing things that I ask Kai to do, like check out the code and do marketing and
00:06:09.460 do sales calls and everything. It's wild. Think of like an org chart where you have like the CEO
00:06:15.760 and then their vice presidents and their directors and all that stuff. You can have a whole organization,
00:06:21.720 all AIs, all managed by one main AI who's at the top. You talk to them. You set the direction. You
00:06:29.060 ask them to execute, approving what needs your approval. That's it. I'm talking about AI agents
00:06:34.860 that have emails, that have the ability to call people, have the ability to review all information,
00:06:40.740 have perfect recall, perfect context across your business. They check the work amongst themselves
00:06:45.820 to make sure it's accurate. They check with the finance person and say, hey, do we have the budget
00:06:49.300 for this? It is wild what's happening today. At this level, your job becomes deciding what to do.
00:06:55.620 the AI agent decides how to do it.
00:06:58.260 Nobody's talking about this.
00:07:00.220 If you try to explain this to somebody else, 0.63
00:07:02.520 they will think you're crazy.
00:07:04.500 I'm speaking from experience,
00:07:06.220 talking to my brothers and trying to explain it to my wife
00:07:08.720 and my team members, trust me.
00:07:10.940 This isn't like the future that might exist.
00:07:14.400 I'm doing this today.
00:07:16.400 My friends are using this system, level three, today.
00:07:20.100 They're going like this, like a rocket ship.
00:07:23.880 They're realizing they can do 10 times more
00:07:26.760 with 10 times less people.
00:07:28.820 So let's go back to just touch points.
00:07:30.740 How many times you have to interact with the AI
00:07:32.820 to make it do things?
00:07:33.880 In level one, it's many
00:07:35.180 because you're using a lot of different tools
00:07:36.880 for every task.
00:07:38.100 Level two is only a few
00:07:39.500 because you start using point-specific solutions
00:07:41.780 to get the thing completed.
00:07:43.540 Level three, it's just one.
00:07:45.560 There's one AI agents that you build a relationship with
00:07:48.160 and you talk to them and then it does it all.
00:07:50.620 Let's talk about what the AI does in each level.
00:07:53.140 in level one it helps you do the work that's cool you can write emails it can do research it could
00:07:57.460 check on things for you awesome sauce level two is that it actually does the complete work product
00:08:03.060 for you outcome driven not just tasks level three it manages everything it does level one
00:08:10.340 two plus three and four and five that you didn't even know now we got to talk about what you do
00:08:14.900 what's your role in all this and level one the truth is you're doing everything okay you're
00:08:18.340 faster cool but it's still you level two now you manage the tool the ai that's doing things for you
00:08:24.180 assign it you check it you repeat level three is you just set the direction you decide the what
00:08:30.100 you want out of your life and then it goes and looks at all your resources and your structure
00:08:34.020 and everything you got and it says here's how we're gonna do it now i know that sounds like a
00:08:38.340 lot of talk so let me show you how i'm actually using this today right now so you might have heard
00:08:43.940 of a product called Open Claw. The problem with it is that it's very complex. You predominantly
00:08:48.640 need hardware that most people can't even buy right now to make it run. And there's massive
00:08:52.700 security issues. What I did was take that platform and build my own. At Martell Ventures, we build
00:08:58.020 AI powered companies. So we decided to build Apex. Apex stands for agent platform for execution.
00:09:04.940 That's why it's called Apex. So I built Apex for myself because I needed something that was secure,
00:09:09.480 simple and powerful i wanted to give it to my team but i was like open claw i can't let that
00:09:14.560 go on my internal network that's why i built it so that i could manage my own agents the skills
00:09:19.340 the workflows and honestly try to figure out how does this whole thing connect let me show you what
00:09:25.180 it's doing for me right now so first off i've got reese reese isn't real it's an ai agent that kai
00:09:31.700 created to increase my real estate portfolio and what he does every single day 24 7 whether he's
00:09:38.060 happy sad or whatever day of the week he's scanning for real estate deals he's emailing
00:09:43.100 off-market deals he's messaging brokers he's building relationships and i know you're like
00:09:48.140 how does the person not know trust me reese has perfect real estate expertise the first two hours
00:09:56.060 i let him go out onto the internet he found seven deals analyzed them said here are the two we
00:10:01.580 should make a bid on here's what i think we should go in at kai says hey do you want to make an
00:10:05.820 approval on these two deals, I say, cool, tell Reese, let's make some offers. And this is all
00:10:10.620 in the last week. All I gave Kai was direction and approval. Another use case is a unified inbox.
00:10:16.660 Think of it this way. You have all these messaging tools, emails, WhatsApp, Slack, your socials,
00:10:22.340 they all go into one place. And what I had Kai do is create a brain, what's called an agent file
00:10:28.580 for each one of those inboxes off of the existing inbox and how I've already messaged on each one
00:10:34.220 those platforms it knows how i write when i email people it knows how i write when i'm on slack it
00:10:39.260 knows how i text on whatsapp and then build a messaging protocol to surface things that need
00:10:44.220 to see my attention or write drafts or email all by itself it can look at context in my calendar
00:10:51.340 it can understand resources it can know where projects are at and the whole thing is managed by
00:10:56.300 kai with each individual agent on each unified inbox and the crazy part is that nobody knows
00:11:02.860 when i'm on vacation anymore because all the messages are getting responded to think about
00:11:06.300 the mental and emotional load that no longer is there how would you feel if you never saw
00:11:11.340 those red notification jewels with 1200 unread messages and all these different platforms
00:11:16.540 i also have a buying tool this is a tool i created called procure you tell it to buy something and
00:11:22.300 it does like hey i want to buy the new metaglasses it researches it it finds it it buys it it ships
00:11:27.340 it to me it uses a virtual credit card that's limited and monitored it gets all my login
00:11:31.660 information from my password management tool no more writing things down to buy it later no more
00:11:36.940 browsing on amazon no more grocery shopping and running errands and picking stuff up guess what
00:11:42.220 you don't have to do that anymore it's execution at the speed of talk which brings me to my next
00:11:46.940 tool which is called speak it's a phone call tool i built this to sit on top of kai because i was
00:11:51.820 like i just want to call him and guess what he can only answer my phone calls he only takes
00:11:55.900 direction from me so for example i can give kai a call hey kai can you tell me what messages i
00:12:01.020 i gotta pay attention to today you've got 50 messages in dispatch 41 in red top priority
00:12:06.960 ann henriks needs your final head count for the rebel stoke retreat by monday plus two critical
00:12:12.200 and seven high priority messages cool can you just text ann and let her know that we're going
00:12:17.160 to be meeting at 11 anyways and i'll just review those then here's what i'm sending to ann henriks
00:12:21.500 at six no don't say my number two he just sends it it's like having a full-time genius chief of
00:12:29.740 staff slash buddy person that can write code and do research all on the other side of a phone call
00:12:35.960 and here's the deal i'm not building apex just for me and my team i'm building it for everyone i
00:12:41.240 genuinely believe that the future of buying back your time is being the agent operator that's what
00:12:47.060 apex is going to be the platform for managing these agents for you and make it dead simple
00:12:52.340 now it's not ready yet because there's still a lot of testing but if you want to be the first to know
00:12:56.720 just click the link below in the description
00:12:58.320 and sign up for the wait list.
00:12:59.840 And that's the future.
00:13:01.080 It's not five years away, it's right now.
00:13:04.140 The question is, which side do you wanna be on?
00:13:06.860 This is bigger than the internet.
00:13:08.820 This is bigger than Bitcoin, this is bigger than mobile,
00:13:11.980 this is bigger than any technical shift in history.
00:13:15.000 Don't be that person selling newspapers
00:13:17.420 in the era of the internet, the one who saw it all,
00:13:20.580 who was at Bitcoin in 2009 and did nothing,
00:13:24.320 because that time is today.
00:13:25.480 it's not hypothetical it's not a maybe it's here and it's now and it's not even that hard if you're
00:13:32.560 willing to learn and more importantly unlearn the thought of I can't do that I'm not technical
00:13:38.880 that's not for me unlearn that so I need you right now to leave me a comment below and if it's level
00:13:43.600 one that's fine you're still more advanced than most of the people just let me know what level
00:13:46.860 you're at below and remember if you want to turn your whole team including yourself into AI power
00:13:52.220 users just dm me the word youtube ai on instagram and i'll send it to you and if you want me to
00:13:56.860 walk you through how to use tools like manis step by step click here and i'll see you on the other