a16z Podcast Aaron Levie and Steven Sinofsky on the AI-Worker Future
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Aug 25, 2025 
In this enlightening discussion, Aaron Levie, CEO of Box, and Steven Sinofsky, former Microsoft executive, dive into the future of AI agents. They explore how these agents differ from traditional AI, emphasizing specialized networks over singular intelligence. The conversation covers the implications of AI on workflows, coding practices, and productivity, while highlighting the need for human oversight. They draw parallels between past tech transformations and current AI advancements, predicting the emergence of new roles and collaborative dynamics in work.
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Autonomy Defines An Agent
- AI agents are best defined by autonomy: running long-running background tasks that do work without constant human intervention.
- The more an agent executes tasks and feeds outputs back into its own inputs, the more "agentic" it becomes.
Feedback Is The Core Of Agency
- Agency requires feedback loops where outputs become inputs and the system verifies itself over time.
- Long-running agents are easy; true agency needs self-reflection and distribution-aware checks to avoid going off-distribution.
Many Specialized Agents, Not One AGI
- Agents will specialize into many deep experts rather than one monolithic AGI, then be orchestrated together.
- This yields two problems: building deep expertise and building orchestration layers to coordinate agents.