Dan Martell - February 26, 2026


The most powerful AI Agent I’ve ever used in my life

Hosted by
Dan Martell
Mentioned
Manus Claude Joe Harris Sam Gaudet Zapier
The school system has ONE MAJOR flaw I don't have HR in my company

Episode Stats


Length

11 minutes

Words per minute

211.31

Word count

2,517

Sentence count

155

Harmful content

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this episode, I talk about how to become a better AI Director and how to get started with agentic AI. Agentic AI is a new technology that has been around for a long time, but a lot of people aren t using it the way it should be used.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
00:00:00.000 AI just changed forever.
00:00:02.060 And if you're still using ChatGPT like a fancy Google search,
00:00:05.240 you're about to get left behind.
00:00:07.140 Most people are still chatting with AI,
00:00:09.680 asking questions, getting answers,
00:00:12.040 maybe writing some emails.
00:00:13.500 But the people who are gonna win the next decade,
00:00:15.900 they're not chatting with AI anymore.
00:00:17.820 They're putting AI to work.
00:00:19.880 AI agents that actually do things, build things,
00:00:24.420 complete entire projects while the human sleeps.
00:00:27.220 I build AI companies and tools every day.
00:00:30.000 And let me tell you,
00:00:30.920 this might be the most important technology shift
00:00:33.360 we've ever seen.
00:00:34.820 Bigger than ChatGPT when it came out.
00:00:37.040 Bigger than the internet.
00:00:38.640 So today I'm gonna show you what this new AI actually is
00:00:41.800 and why it's different.
00:00:43.060 How to think about it differently
00:00:44.780 so you actually use it right.
00:00:46.360 The perfect tool for your scenario, 0.98
00:00:48.720 not just some hyped up crap. 0.67
00:00:50.340 And if you stick around to the end, 0.72
00:00:52.520 I'll walk you through your first fully agentic workflow
00:00:55.740 step by step.
00:00:57.480 So let's start by understanding what it is
00:00:59.540 the first place point one what is agentic ai there's three levels of ai the first level that
00:01:07.300 we all got introduced to was chat chat gpt claude gemini i talk to it i give it context it replies
00:01:14.260 it's gotten better over time the second level is automation and that's when we start taking
00:01:19.300 the ai and its ability to classify and respond create workflows that run automatically and
00:01:24.980 And these are tools like make.com or Zapier or N8N
00:01:28.340 for the more advanced people.
00:01:29.580 Level three is agent.
00:01:31.640 This is where the AI thinks, plans, reasons,
00:01:35.400 and executes entire tasks on its own.
00:01:38.780 It opens browsers, it writes code, it creates files,
00:01:42.040 it does research, it doesn't need your hand holding.
00:01:45.360 Most people are at level one, maybe level two,
00:01:49.000 but the right people are moving to level three
00:01:50.960 and the best part, you don't have to go to level two
00:01:52.860 to get to level three because it'll do it for you.
00:01:55.220 Point number two, the new mindset you need.
00:01:58.620 Here's the biggest mistake
00:02:00.440 that people are making with AI right now.
00:02:02.260 Truth is they're barely using it.
00:02:03.980 At best, they might be using it as a thought partner
00:02:06.640 when it could actually build for you.
00:02:08.600 This mindset shift that I see
00:02:10.080 that I encourage people to consider,
00:02:11.260 which is you are the director, not the doer.
00:02:14.180 You need to be designing, not the task maker.
00:02:17.480 And people think, well, if I don't do it,
00:02:19.560 who's gonna do it?
00:02:20.680 AI'll do it.
00:02:21.780 Your job is to give direction, to review the work,
00:02:24.580 to course correct, not to do the work yourself,
00:02:27.220 which sounds crazy.
00:02:28.260 It's called reverse prompting.
00:02:29.580 Essentially, you start with the outcome.
00:02:31.600 What is the goal?
00:02:32.660 And then you let AI build a plan to accomplish the goal.
00:02:36.060 If you're influencing it, then you're telling it what to do
00:02:39.020 and I'm telling you, it knows better than you.
00:02:41.160 So if you haven't heard,
00:02:42.260 IBM rolled out AI agents for their 270,000 employees.
00:02:46.900 It was a $4.5 billion in productivity gains.
00:02:50.920 Managers now complete tasks, like managing their team
00:02:53.960 and figuring out who needs a promotion, 75% faster.
00:02:56.780 That's not because AI is smarter than them,
00:02:59.020 it's because they stopped doing and started directing.
00:03:02.080 So how do you actually become a good AI director?
00:03:04.960 There's only three things you need to do.
00:03:06.820 The first thing is you have to have a clear outcome.
00:03:09.280 You need to know what's the problem to solve.
00:03:12.700 Before it gets going, because it can do a lot of things,
00:03:14.720 you gotta ask yourself, what is that result?
00:03:17.020 What is that outcome you want it to do?
00:03:18.660 the second thing is we want to give it clear instructions i think about what is an example
00:03:23.540 of an output if i'm going to ask it to do a task can i give it a format can i give it the
00:03:28.100 requirements can i give it the template the more specific you can be the better it's going to work
00:03:33.060 for you and three clarify the results i want you to treat it like an intern give it feedback tell
00:03:39.300 it to save the feedback and it will remember because as we build this automation this agentic
00:03:44.260 workflow, it'll be able to do it on its own. If you do those three things, the AI stops giving
00:03:49.260 you generic garbage and starts giving you exactly what you need. And notice how in none of those
00:03:54.340 steps, we actually tell it how to do the work. We begin with the end in mind. It's its job to
00:03:59.420 figure out how to get there. The CEO of Notion, which is the one of the top productivity tools
00:04:03.480 out there, he calls it the manager of infinite minds. When you have this army of infinite minds
00:04:09.140 out there accomplishing, researching, feeding back to each other, and then you can sit in your
00:04:13.740 cockpit and being the director, the future is going to look completely different than how you
00:04:18.520 got to this point in your life. And again, I'm going to show you exactly how to do this. And
00:04:22.500 it's super simple towards the end of this video. If you're a business owner and you're trying to
00:04:26.360 scale past seven figures and you're kind of struggling, figuring out ways to actually
00:04:30.120 integrate AI into your business. I created my AI implementation workbook for a lot of my friends
00:04:34.800 because I wanted to walk them through how we integrate AI into every department in my company,
00:04:39.920 step by step. So if you want a free copy, just find me on Instagram at Dan Martell and DM me
00:04:44.980 the words AI business and I'll send it right over. There's a bunch of AI agent tools out there and it
00:04:50.100 can confuse you. So I'm going to tell you which one is right for you. Point number three, which
00:04:55.340 tool is the right tool? If you ask AI to tell you what tools you can use to create agentic systems,
00:05:01.480 it'll give you a bunch of different tools because there's a bunch and they're coming out every week
00:05:05.300 And every tool is great for one specific thing.
00:05:08.580 So you could go use them all,
00:05:09.920 but that would mean you'd be a master of none.
00:05:11.980 What I'm gonna recommend is you go deep on one,
00:05:14.440 become an expert in that.
00:05:16.360 I'm gonna give you the answer
00:05:17.620 to which one is right for you based on who you are.
00:05:20.360 But once you know that, I want you to go all in.
00:05:23.260 So here's how we pick the right tool.
00:05:25.360 If you're a business owner who needs research,
00:05:27.360 content, and general tasks done, use Manus AI
00:05:30.080 because it is the best all-around agent
00:05:32.900 for getting real work done at the filming of this video if you're a creative who writes designs or
00:05:39.380 works with ideas use Claude co-work they call it co-work because it actually runs on your computer
00:05:45.060 it can manage your files it can clean up folders it can open up tabs on your browser and essentially
00:05:49.860 can accomplish complete projects for you without you involved now if you're a developer or someone
00:05:54.180 who writes code use Claude code it can fix bugs it can add test files it can do work in parallel
00:06:01.140 to your code base while you focus on other harder problems
00:06:04.480 or talk to customers or test what is built.
00:06:07.060 It is the tool that all the developers
00:06:08.760 at the other AI companies use to build that AI.
00:06:11.960 It's kind of wild.
00:06:12.820 And if you want a completely automated,
00:06:16.260 full personal assistant that runs on your computer
00:06:19.160 and you're a little nerdy, use OpenClaw.
00:06:21.660 The reason why is it runs like a person.
00:06:25.380 It'll understand who you are and it has memory.
00:06:27.640 I think it gives you a glimpse
00:06:29.240 of what the future will look like
00:06:30.900 at scale. But it is a little technical setup and truthfully risky. So be careful. I saw an example
00:06:37.320 where the bot bought a $3,000 course for itself so it could be a better agent with no permission.
00:06:44.280 The point is, is pick one. Don't try to learn them all right now. I know you're excited and you're
00:06:48.680 like, oh my gosh, this is the future. But the more you use the one, the more you ask it to teach you
00:06:53.160 how to use more features, the better you'll get at directing AI, which is the skill we need to
00:06:57.680 develop. Let me actually show you exactly how you can use AI agents, because I'm going to go through
00:07:03.200 a real task with Manus right now. I'm going to make it easy for you to understand so you can
00:07:07.820 follow along and see exactly how this works. Point number four, Manus and action. So for example,
00:07:14.340 if I'm the founder of a digital marketing agency and I want to do some research on my competitors
00:07:18.540 so I can see what they're doing and figure out if I got to change my pricing or my offer,
00:07:22.100 I can get Manus to do that. So just go to Manus and type something like this,
00:07:25.860 Research the top three niches, digital agency in Canada,
00:07:29.920 finding their pricing, main features,
00:07:32.040 and what they're doing well.
00:07:32.960 Then create a simple one-page website
00:07:34.620 that summarizes the findings.
00:07:36.340 So notice it's doing the research.
00:07:37.940 It's finding those three companies.
00:07:39.220 It's building a task list so they can follow.
00:07:41.780 It's writing the code of the new website for the output.
00:07:44.460 It's doing it, and I'm not touching the keyboard.
00:07:46.500 And I didn't give it any expert detailed instructions.
00:07:49.600 Even somebody that doesn't know a whole lot about anything
00:07:51.820 could have wrote what I wrote,
00:07:53.080 and they would have got an expert level output.
00:07:55.740 Most people would have took a week plus
00:07:57.900 and they probably wouldn't know how to code this
00:07:59.640 and they would have confused it.
00:08:01.220 This did it automatically in less than 10 minutes.
00:08:04.240 And my favorite part is within Manus,
00:08:06.120 I can now iterate because there's some things
00:08:08.760 that are missing or maybe I want some changes.
00:08:10.640 So I'm gonna tell it.
00:08:11.480 Now add a section to each one
00:08:14.040 that includes client testimonials.
00:08:16.540 Enter, watch, it's going.
00:08:19.160 It's literally updating itself.
00:08:21.020 And just like that, I now have client testimonials
00:08:23.420 that were pulled from each of those companies
00:08:25.000 did the research and it updated the website in minutes. So now I'm going to ask it to send it
00:08:29.640 to Sam Gaudet, who's my creative director in Slack and ask him to provide feedback. And then also
00:08:34.560 email that link with the details of what I did in the research to Joel Harrison. Now I go check
00:08:39.160 Slack. It posted it as me and it has a little icon that says Manus. So they know that it was
00:08:43.520 from Manus. I can now get feedback from my team and apply it to that website. So I can tell it
00:08:49.400 to monitor that Slack thread and see if there's a reply every 15 minutes, every hour, whatever I
00:08:54.300 want to tell Manus. And if it gets feedback, it's going to either prompt me or I can just say,
00:08:57.940 take any feedback and automatically apply it. And it'll apply it to the website. It did all of that.
00:09:03.240 It did the research. It created the website. It shared it with my team. It took their feedback.
00:09:07.200 It updated it. It took my feedback, updated it all within minutes. And what's cool is you can
00:09:11.920 kick off a bunch of those in parallel and they'll all run while you're doing something else. So now
00:09:17.440 you understand, I went from an idea to a prompt, to sending it out to people I work with, to getting
00:09:23.420 the feedback to updating the output. And I can even say now email or post on Slack to everybody
00:09:28.340 that's been involved, letting them know the change is made. I do this all the time. It's
00:09:33.600 amazeballs. It's crazy. The fact that without knowing how to create automation, you've just
00:09:39.000 created automation. My favorite part, it's mobile. So on my phone, I can sit there and I can talk to
00:09:44.200 it and I can tell it what I want it to do. Spins up, runs it, connects to stuff, pulls everything.
00:09:49.380 Now, here's a pro tip.
00:09:51.040 I challenge you to stay in the tool.
00:09:53.960 See, we've been taught because of the chat level
00:09:56.280 that we need to chat and it gives us a response
00:09:58.780 and we copy the response and then we go do something with it.
00:10:01.340 Post it in Slack, send an email, create a Google Doc.
00:10:04.400 Don't do it.
00:10:05.420 I dare you not to do it.
00:10:06.700 You'll be tempted to take action, don't.
00:10:08.840 That way you get better and the AI gets better
00:10:11.860 because it's doing more for you
00:10:13.160 and it's learning how you like to work.
00:10:15.320 So now that you've seen how it works,
00:10:17.840 This is the question.
00:10:19.040 What are you gonna do about it?
00:10:20.380 What are you gonna change?
00:10:21.780 AI is the opportunity you've been waiting for.
00:10:24.260 You've been asking, like,
00:10:25.180 why wasn't I early to the internet?
00:10:26.720 Oh my gosh, I wish I would've came out
00:10:28.040 with that mobile app idea.
00:10:29.520 This is now.
00:10:30.540 In the next five years is the AI gold rush.
00:10:33.840 And there will be more millionaires created
00:10:35.760 in the next five years than the history of the internet.
00:10:39.180 Just like the dot-com boom.
00:10:41.040 This is bigger.
00:10:41.840 This isn't about being an AI expert.
00:10:44.640 The cool part is AI is the AI expert.
00:10:46.680 It's about being willing to learn.
00:10:49.180 It's about telling yourself,
00:10:50.500 I need to just sit down and do the work.
00:10:53.100 And I know I'm not technical
00:10:54.480 and I know this still confuses me,
00:10:55.860 but I'm willing to read, I'm willing to research,
00:10:57.860 and I'm willing to empower the tool to help me in my life.
00:11:01.560 And the best part is, is you just saw how easy it was
00:11:04.600 to do something that seems complicated
00:11:06.620 and it did it in minutes.
00:11:07.720 Stop pretending not to know.
00:11:09.540 I know it's overwhelming, but if you just take action,
00:11:12.640 I promise you it will click.
00:11:14.540 So here's what I want you to do right now.
00:11:16.240 Pick one tool based on what I said earlier.
00:11:18.900 Number two, pick one task that you're doing every week
00:11:21.960 that takes you a lot of time.
00:11:23.540 Three, have the agent do it for you today.
00:11:27.260 Sit down with it, play with it.
00:11:28.600 If you do that, you will start to change the mindset
00:11:31.900 and the belief and understand how easy this is.
00:11:34.820 And you will get ahead of 99.9% of everybody else
00:11:37.780 using AI to do chat.
00:11:40.120 And remember, if you want my free copy
00:11:41.780 of my AI implementation playbook
00:11:43.480 that we use in all my companies,
00:11:45.260 just DM me the word AI business on Instagram
00:11:48.120 and I'll send it right over.
00:11:49.420 And if you wanna learn what are the best AI tools
00:11:51.440 to make money in 2026,
00:11:53.280 click here and I'll see you on the other side.