What happens when a lifelong innovator goes from AI skeptic to passionate advocate for democratizing technology?

In this episode of Prompted: Builder Stories, Kyle James sits down with Sam Mallikarjunan, General Manager at Agent.ai and former Head of Growth at HubSpot Labs, to explore how AI is reshaping creativity, work, and human potential. Sam shares his personal journey — from building OneScreen.ai to leading the charge at Agent.ai — and explains why the future of AI depends on imagination, not just technology.

👉 Watch the full conversation to learn how AI can empower anyone to build, automate, and innovate.

Read the companion blog post and join the community discussion at blog.agent.ai

Learn more and connect with Sam:

• Connect with Sam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mallikarjunan/
• Take Sam’s AI course on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/generative-ai-for-sales-and-services-professionals/ai-in-sales-and-services

Join us for an inspiring episode of Builder Stories featuring Vikram Ekambaram, a visionary in the world of AI agents. Vikram's journey from redundancy to innovation is a testament to resilience and the transformative power of Gen AIi. Discover how he empowers non-technical individuals to make a significant impact in AI.

In this episode, Vikram shares his insights on leveraging Gen AI to bridge gaps in go-to-market strategies, even in AI-first companies. He emphasizes the importance of data in agent building, stating, "It's all about the data. If I have the data, I could probably build an agent on top of it to do whatever your process is." Vikram's consultancy, Vyceral Solutions, focuses on solving real business problems through multi-agent orchestration, showcasing the future of AI as inherently multi-agentic. His story encourages builders to embrace challenges and explore AI's possibilities, advising, "Solve a problem that you have yourself." Whether you're an experienced builder or just starting, Vikram's journey offers valuable lessons and inspiration for all.

Subscribe for more Builder Stories and visit agent.ai to start building your own agents.

Learn more and connect with Vikram Ekambaram:

• Connect with Vikram on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vekambar/
• Follow Vikram on Agent.ai: https://agent.ai/human/vekambar
• VYCERAL Solutions Website: https://www.vyceralsolutions.com/
• VYCERAL on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@VYCERALSolutions/

What if your backlog of support tickets could do more than record problems?

In this episode of Builder Stories, Kyle James sits down with Tom Bachant, founder and CEO of Unthread, to explore how AI can transform everyday support conversations into actionable insights.

Tom’s journey spans from co-founding the ride-sharing startup Dashride (acquired by Cruise) to leading Unthread, an AI-powered support platform that lives entirely inside Slack. Along the way, he built the Support Ticket Analyzer Agent on Agent.ai — a practical tool that turns raw CSV data into clear recommendations for product, IT, and HR teams.

You’ll learn:

• How Unthread automates internal support directly within Slack
• The story behind Tom’s Support Ticket Analyzer Agent and how it works
• Why actionable insight is more powerful than simple AI summarization
• How teams can use AI to prioritize fixes, improve documentation, and plan better roadmaps
• The human lessons behind building real, useful AI agents

🎯 Try Tom’s Support Ticket Analyzer Agent: https://www.agent.ai

💬 Join the community: https://community.agent.ai

If you’ve ever wondered how to make AI actually useful for your team, this episode will show you where to start.

Learn more and connect with Tom Bachant:

• Connect with Tom on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tombachant/
• Tom’s Support Ticket Analyzer Agent: https://agent.ai/profile/ticket-analysis
• Unthread’s Website - https://unthread.io/

Beth Dunn, Head of Product Experience at Agent.ai and former HubSpot content design leader, shares her journey from creating “BethBot” to developing the Sweet Spot Framework for working with AI. In this episode of Builder Stories, Beth explains how builders can use agents to amplify their strengths, fill workflow gaps, and create more space for creativity.

You’ll learn:

• How Beth “automated herself out of a job” and into more meaningful work
• The origins of the Sweet Spot archetypes and sidekick agents
• Why generalists may be superpowered in the age of AI
• How agents can evolve into adaptive teammates, not just tools
• Practical advice for builders on where to start and how to collaborate

Beth’s message to the Agent.ai community is simple: lean into the weird.

• 👉 Watch now and discover your sweet spot with AI agents.
• 🎧 Full podcast available wherever you listen.
• 🔗 Try the Sweet Spot agent here: https://blog.agent.ai/the-sweet-spot-agent

Learn more and connect with Beth Dunn:

• Beth on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bethdunn/
• The Sweet Spot Sidekick Blog Post - https://blog.agent.ai/sweet-spot-sidekicks
• Beth’s Website - https://www.bethdunn.com/
• Beth Dunn’s Builder Profile - https://agent.ai/human/BethDunn_4
• Beth riding in a Waymo - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/inbound_inbound25-activity-7369810396318285825-qyY_

Learn more and connect with Mike Redbord:

• Mike on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mredbord/
• AI Workshop Signup - https://content.agent.ai/ai-skills-workshop
• Session Ran at Inbound - https://www.inbound.com/sessions/recQMNBsJpB6ZLhIk

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Welcome to another episode of Prompted: Builder Stories by Agent.ai.

In this conversation, we sit down with Mike Redbord, known as the “Human Helper” at Agent.ai. Mike has taught thousands of people to build their first AI agent through Agent.ai’s 101 workshops. He’s seen firsthand what sparks confidence, creativity, and real adoption.

In this episode, Mike shares:

• Why starting small is the key to success in agent building
• How play and experimentation lead to breakthrough ideas
• The role of community and co-learning in building momentum
• Insights from INBOUND 2025 and the shift from curiosity to imperative adoption
• Why an iteration mindset is more powerful than aiming for perfection

Whether you’re just getting started or already experimenting with agents, Mike’s story is full of practical takeaways to help you move from tinkering to traction.

👉 Subscribe for more builder stories and join the Agent.ai community: https://community.agent.ai/

👉 Try building your first agent today: https://agent.ai/

Learn more and connect with Logan Rivenes:

• Logan’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/loganrivenes/
• Red Bike Marketing - https://redbikemarketing.com/
• Demand Gen Confidential Podcast - https://redbikemarketing.com/demand-gen-confidential/
• HR Bench Pulse Podcast - http://www.hrbench.com/resource/pulse

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“I’m of the opinion that out of the box is for amateurs.” – Logan Rivenes

When layoffs and market shifts put pressure on job seekers, Logan Rivenes, demand generation veteran and host of Demand Gen Confidential, turned to AI agents not just as a side project but as a lifeline. With 15 years of experience scaling pipeline for B2B companies, Logan knew how to work systems. What he did not expect was that building agents would land him his next big role at HRBench.

Logan describes himself as a sales rep turned marketer with a love for tinkering. That do-it-yourself streak led him to push past “out of the box” defaults in both marketing automation and AI. Rather than rely on pre-built templates, he stitched together free tools like Clay, Apollo, and Google Sheets with Agent.ai webhooks to create a fully customized job-hunting workflow.

“Every post is basically a thousand applications… How am I gonna get through the noise?”

Logan’s system started with firmographic filters (HR tech, company size) in Apollo, cross-checked in Clay, then piped into Google Sheets. From there:

• Agent.ai webhook calls scanned job boards and company sites directly.
• A validation agent enriched company profiles with funding and context.
• Manual plus AI-assisted cover letter drafting layered personalization on top.

The scale was impressive:

“The total company list was 5,000… whittled down to 10 or 15 good jobs I could apply for.”

This was not a spray-and-pray approach. It was targeted, systematic, and repeatable.

The process worked.

“I landed a gig through this AI builder.”

Logan joined HRBench, an HR data company, and immediately began applying lessons from agent building into his marketing workflows. For him, the takeaway was clear: agents are not abstract toys. They are practical leverage.

Logan’s story highlights several principles that builders can carry into their own projects. First, agent design is about workflows, not lines of code. He compares building with Agent.ai to designing a HubSpot workflow or drawing a flowchart in Miro. Once you know the outcome you want, you can break the process into steps and link them together. That mindset lowers the barrier to entry for anyone who has ever worked with automation.

Another lesson is the importance of resourcefulness. Logan deliberately avoided expensive SaaS tiers by piecing together free versions of Clay, Apollo, and Google Sheets, then connecting them through simple webhook calls. It required more manual effort, but it also made the solution more accessible and replicable. He encourages builders to focus first on solving the problem with whatever is at hand, rather than waiting for perfect conditions or full-featured subscriptions.

Finally, Logan...

Learn more and connect with Matthew Stein:

• Matthew’s LinkedIn Profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/steinmatthew/
• Matthew’s Agent AI Profile - https://agent.ai/human/Chefmattrock

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*We wanted to take advantage of the recent momentum of the Inbound 2025 conference and are putting together a few episodes that dive into those insights with conversations from select insiders. Matthew here is the first of those conversations.

At Inbound 2025, one thing was undeniable: AI agents were everywhere.

As Matthew Stein, executive producer of Prompted Builder Stories and part of the Agent.ai team, put it:

“AI is definitely front and center stage, everywhere you look.”

This year’s conference wasn’t just about buzzwords. It was about building. The Agent.ai booth gave attendees space to post ideas on a Bright Ideas Board and then walk over to the Builder Support Station, where Matthew and the team sat down with screens open and started turning those ideas into prototypes — often in under an hour.

What stood out wasn’t just how much attention AI agents drew, but how engaged people were in translating curiosity into action. Some attendees came with vague notions (“can AI help my sales team?”), while others brought specific, costly problems. In both cases, builders could help define the problem and spin up working solutions.

As Matthew shared:

“Sometimes they’re incredibly vague… Other people came in with an extremely discreet idea… and we solved some of those building pretty cool prototypes in, you know, under an hour.”

The energy was hands-on, collaborative, and optimistic. The takeaway? Builders aren’t just theorizing about agents anymore — they’re making them real.

Across dozens of conversations, Matthew noticed clear patterns:

• Ops leads the way. Beyond sales and marketing, operations teams brought some of the most compelling use cases — where agents can eliminate repetitive workflows and unlock scale.
• Clear problem definitions win. Good agent ideas start with specific, bounded problems. Bad ones are fuzzy (“find my spiritual center”). The best? Precise tasks with measurable outcomes.
• The payoff is real. Time saved, money saved, errors reduced — those were the consistent benefits.

One standout story came from a translation company that still hired interns to manually count words in non-Latin scripts so they could price projects:

“That’s a perfect idea of something that helps save money, saves time, and reduces a bunch of grunt work.”

Within 45 minutes, the team had a prototype that handled Arabic and Greek documents with 95% accuracy — freeing interns from mind-numbing work and helping the company scale faster.

Matthew boiled it down simply:

“Basically we think of an agent as something that takes input, does a multi-step process that leverages tools, … and then returns output to you.”

And the litmus test for value?

“They need to solve painful problems, save meaningful time and money, have a thoughtful user experience, and create genuine value.”

Inbound 2025 showed how quickly builders are moving from ideas to working prototypes. And Matthew sees a clear trajectory:

“You’re going to see people jumping between applications less and less as these agents do a better job of stitching together the different places...

Learn more and connect with Erol:

• Erol’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/erolaykan/
• ObjectionOwl Agent (Award Winner) - https://agent.ai/profile/objectionowl
• Sales Discovery Coach Agent - https://agent.ai/profile/discovery-coach

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“What’s really important to me is that I build something that makes a change in someone’s life.” – Erol Aykan

When Erol Aykan, a Sales Manager at HubSpot, first started tinkering with AI, he wasn’t chasing awards. He was trying to solve a problem for his team. A tedious process that used to take five hours a week could now be done in just 20 minutes, thanks to a simple Chrome extension he built by prompting an LLM. That lightbulb moment kicked off his builder journey.

From there, Erol leaned into his strengths as a sales leader: frameworks, repeatable processes, and a relentless focus on coaching. The result? Two standout agents, ObjectionOwl and Discovery Coach, that transform raw sales call transcripts into structured insights and actionable coaching feedback.

Erol describes his philosophy this way:

“Make it scalable, make it simple, and build on a framework.”

For him, Agent.ai wasn’t just about fancy output. It was about building tools that sales reps and managers could actually use to improve every single day. ObjectionOwl surfaces and categorizes deal-blocking objections in seconds. Discovery Coach turns discovery call transcripts into a coaching scorecard, breaking down strengths and areas for improvement.

What makes Erol’s story powerful for the builder community isn’t just the award-winning output, it’s his mindset. He didn’t try to build “software.” He started with a small, painful use case and scaled it into something useful. And he’s quick to point out that anyone can do the same:

“Don’t overthink it. Start small, and progress it into something applicable and useful for you.”

Erol’s journey is a reminder that the most impactful agents often come from people closest to the problem. You don’t need deep technical skills to start, you need curiosity, a willingness to ask good questions, and the drive to make a difference.