What if your AI agent could send emails, check your calendar, and even text people on your behalf—all securely and with your permission? In this episode, Aydin and guest co-host Alexandra from Fellow talk with Sam Partee, co-founder of Arcade, about how AI agents are actually becoming useful in the real world.
Sam breaks down how Arcade enables LLM-powered agents to act on your behalf across tools like Gmail, Slack, Salesforce, and more, without sacrificing security. He also shows us how he automates his own workflows, from email triage to iMessage replies, and shares how tools like Cursor and Claude are reshaping how engineers work day-to-day.
Whether you're technical or not, this episode is packed with actionable insights on what it means to work in an AI-native company—and how to start doing it yourself.
Timestamps
0:00 – The future of agents impersonating people
01:20 – Meet Sam Partee and his background in high-performance computing
02:50 – What Arcade is and how it powers AI agents
05:10 – Use case: ambient social media agents
06:50 – “YOLO mode” vs. human-in-the-loop agent workflows
07:30 – Building a lean AI-native company
08:00 – Engineers are now 1.5x more productive—with caveats
12:00 – Why the whole team (PMs, QA, etc.) should use tools like Cursor1
4:00 – How Markdown became the LLM-native format
17:00 – Sam’s iMessage agent and calendar automation
18:45 – His AI-powered inbox (email triage + drafting)
21:00 – Live demo: using Slack assistant “Archer” built with Arcade
24:00 – How non-technical people can use these tools too27:00 – Cursor vs. Copilot: What’s better?
30:00 – Cursor agent mode and example developer workflows
34:00 – Vector databases and prompt design
35:00 – Using LLMs to redesign error handling and generate docs
38:00 – Advice for teams adopting AI: start by building
Tools and Technologies:
Arcade – Let AI agents act on your behalf (email, Slack, calendar, etc.) with secure OAuth.
Cursor – LLM-native IDE with full-codebase context. Ideal for AI-assisted development.
Claude – Chat interface + agent orchestration, paired with Arcade.
LangGraph – Multi-agent orchestration framework with human-in-the-loop support.T
ailScale – Secure remote networking; enables Sam to access agents from anywhere.
Twilio – Used for SMS reminders and notifications.
Obsidian + Markdown – Sam uses Markdown + AI for personal notes and research.
GitHub Copilot – Used in tandem with Cursor for inline suggestions and PR reviews.
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