Issue 60 |💡AI Has Ushered In The Age of Agency. Here's How To Succeed In It.
Welcome to the A > I World, Where Agency Matters More Than IQ.
IoNTELLIGENCE helps high performers thrive in a fast-changing world by optimizing their minds and leveraging AI.
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🧠 Time Investment: 5 Minutes.
🏆 Goal: Identify five “agentic mindsets” to help you succeed in the AI-powered “Age of Agency.”
Agency > Intelligence.
AI expert Andrej Karpathy recently wrote this provocative equation on X, expanding on an idea first expressed by Garry Tan, the President and CEO of Y Combinator: “Intelligence is on tap now, so agency is even more important.”
Let’s step back for a moment. Last week, I wrote about how AI has fundamentally altered the economics of thinking. The TL:DR: AI has made super-intelligence cheaper than Netflix. As a result, we should be turning to AI for a second opinion on everything - because the cost of accessing that big brain is a few seconds and a few cents.
When knowledge becomes a utility, the effects cascade through the economy. What becomes the essential quality in an intelligence-saturated world? Agency, as Garry and Andrej correctly concluded.
It should come as no surprise that Silicon Valley types would say this since the most buzzed-about term there these days is hiring “high agency” people. Don’t let the jargon distract you: the qualities employers prize are changing. Expertise is out; initiative is in. This shift will impact your career, whether you’re an employee, an executive, or an entrepreneur.
The discourse following those thought-provoking tweets debated whether this was true. That’s the wrong discussion. To paraphrase William Gibson, this has already happened; it's just not widely accepted yet. The reality is that we’ve entered a new era in the world of work. The better question is, how do we prepare for this?
Here is the playbook for thriving in the emerging Age of Agency.
🚨 The Big Idea
AI has made thinking cheap by lowering the cost of accessing knowledge. As a result, the price and value of intelligence is plummeting. It’s not just that expertise has been commoditized. Two more dynamics are at play in this moment.
Execution used to matter more than insight; it’s being devalued now, too
One of my favorite phrases is that “ideas are worse than worthless.” Let me explain. Having a great concept for a book or product seduces us into thinking that the hardest part is done. Ideas are exciting, but they’re just dreams without deadlines if you don’t do something concrete with them.
Execution has mattered more than ideation for the past few decades. Many people probably considered building an online bookstore, but only Jeff Bezos did it.
Today, your “great idea” is worth less. That’s not all that has depreciated, however: AI can now accelerate, if not automate, execution. Chat GPT can help you brainstorm your business concept, write the project plan, put together the pitch deck, build the website, and even create the product if it is digital or code-based.
The pendulum has swung again. With execution being assisted by AI, the advantage now moves back to people who seize ideas (either their own or AI-sourced) and pair that inspiration with decisive action. But there’s one more reason why agency trumps intelligence these days.
Uncertainty favors action
🧭 "Never waste the opportunity offered by a good crisis." – Niccolò Machiavelli
Today's sheer velocity of change is vertigo-inducing, but the Italian grand strategist’s words ring as true in 2025 as they did in 1525. Volatility creates opportunity: in uncertain environments, people who hustle will outperform those who hesitate.
Agency becomes the critical ingredient for success in a world where ideas are costless, execution is frictionless, and change is endless.
But what do we mean, exactly, by that term?
At the risk of drawing a false metaphor, agency is a bit like pornography: hard to define, but we know it when we see it. However, we must try.
Agency is a mindset coupled with a set of learnable actions that help us attain our goals.
Agentic people exhibit:
Initiative
Confidence
A strong bias for action
Decisiveness under uncertainty
A willingness to embrace calculated risks
Agency in the office
Whereas your company may have needed 10 marketing copywriters BC (Before Chat GPT), they’ll need two now. And it won’t be the two most senior or experienced, either: it will be those who can do the work of the 10 being force-multiplied by AI. Be one of those two by demonstrating agency.
However, two will become none in 12 to 18 months because AI agents will do all that work. “Agency” at the intrapreneur level within organizations has a half-life. I don’t know how long it is, but it’s probably no more than five years.
Agency out in the wild
Agency at an entrepreneurial level is a better bet because you have a longer runway.
Here is a case study in zero-to-one agency. Cursor, an AI-powered code editor, was born just as GPT emerged. While most of us - myself included! - were fooling around getting LLMs to rewrite “Stairway to Heaven” as a Shakespearean sonnet, four MIT students rolled up their sleeves and launched it in January 2023.
Cursor demonstrates the immense potential of being opportunistic in the rapidly evolving tech landscape. It achieved $100 million in annual recurring revenue in just 12 months with a team of only 20. That’s $100 million in revenue, not valuation.
What Does This Mean For You?
In a world where everyone can cheaply access superintelligent AI, the real differentiator becomes a specific form of agency uniquely adapted to this moment. The future belongs to people who cultivate confidence amid uncertainty, practice decisiveness as a reflex, are willing to experiment and iterate, and adopt a posture of disciplined curiosity.
The Urgency of Now
We are at a propitious moment when AI models are powerful enough to empower individuals who show initiative but cannot completely replace them. At some point, agentic AI will supplant agentic people.
I’ll write about that next week when I explore how we have entered into a “Move 37 moment.”
📈 5 Ways To Prepare for the A > I World (Agency > Intelligence)
1. Run Toward Risk and See “Safety” as the Imposter It Is.
We need to build psychological resilience and confidence in navigating complexity and uncertainty. Joi Ito of MIT Media Labs developed a set of principles for thriving in a volatile world, and this is one of them. In the old, predictable world, prioritizing safety over risk made sense. Today, the perilous approach is being too cautious to make calculated bets. This doesn’t mean ignoring danger; it simply means understanding that its nature has changed.
2. See Around Corners.
In this new era, you must be one part strategist and one part futurist. Agency in the AI age means scanning the horizon for threats and opportunities, searching for patterns, and identifying possible solutions. To quote another favorite Canadian, Wayne Gretzky, it involves “skating to where the puck is going, not where it’s been.”
3. Adopt the USMC’s 70% Rule.
The Marines' DNA includes a bias for action. To reinforce this mentality, they follow a simple rule: If you have 70% of the information and resources you need and are 70% confident of success, charge. Remember: a well-executed plan has a better chance of success than doing nothing - in business as much as in battle.
4. Try, Test, Fine-Tune, and Repeat.
Go on offense with experiments. Make lots of little bets and then examine the results. Learn by doing. Find a pilot product that you can stand up quickly and test out specific hypotheses. Then, like a good poker player, cut your losses, split your aces, or double down.
5. Cultivate Disciplined Curiosity.
Ideas still matter, and AI empowers us to explore them deeply. But the magic happens when you have the strategic self-control to pivot to execution as soon as you have achieved “minimum viable knowledge.” Find the balance between exploration and exploitation.
🏆 Key Takeaways
🏁 If You Only Do One Thing
You are probably sitting on a great idea that is gathering dust right now. Why haven't you acted on it? Are you waiting for more information? Agency means acting precisely when conditions aren't perfect.
Quick Agency Audit:
🔲 Have you identified at least one idea to test with AI today?
🔲 Are you getting close to 70% confidence or still waiting for 100%?
🔲 Have you scheduled your next small-risk bet?
"Which box is the hardest for you to check off? Let me know below.
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IoNTELLIGENCE by Ion Valis. I'm a strategic advisor and performance coach to entrepreneurs and executives. To learn more about my work, visit my website or connect on LinkedIn.
Dear Ion, is all this your own creation and work you are involved now. If it is, congratulations!
Of course, I am too old to take advantage of your plan, but I wish you all the best promoting it.
The elder Paris.