A Beginner's Guide to AI AI At Work: Agents Are Already Here - A Conversation with Sam Ransbotham
Dec 17, 2025
In this engaging discussion, Sam Ransbotham, an MIT Sloan researcher and host of Me, Myself, and AI, delves into the rising influence of AI agents in organizations. He explains how these proactive assistants enhance productivity and job satisfaction by taking over repetitive tasks. The conversation highlights insights from a global study on executive adoption rates and practical use cases, like Chevron's innovative tools. Ransbotham emphasizes the importance of understanding AI for effective usage and discusses the evolving roles of generalists and specialists in the workplace.
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From Tools To Proactive Assistants
- AI agents shift tools from passive to proactive assistants that act on our behalf.
- This reduces iterative refinement and aims to save users time by doing proactive tasks.
Agent Adoption Is Already Widespread
- MIT Sloan found 35% of organizations already use AI agents and 44% plan to adopt them.
- Vendor ecosystems accelerate adoption by embedding agentic features into existing products.
Chevron's Proactive Exploration Agent
- Chevron used agentic tools to continuously search for promising fuel locations and surface leads.
- The agent flags possibilities but humans decide whether to act, avoiding blind automation.