Hallway Chat Building Open World AI w/Andrew Mason
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Sep 27, 2025 
Andrew Mason, founder of Descript, discusses the transformative journey of open world agents in AI products. He delves into how Airtable's recent updates signify a new era for AI interaction, emphasizing the importance of user trust and visible results. The conversation explores the agent-first UX, where chat functionalities lead, and how AI can enhance creativity in product design. Andrew reveals insights on retraining teams to adopt AI-centric mindsets and the future of human-AI collaboration in a world driven by seamless interfaces.
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Open-World Agents Enable Emergent Work
- Open-world agents let users ask for anything within a product's domain and often deliver emergent, surprising results.
- Airtable and Descript show this works well when the product already has a clear visual or data surface to audit outputs.
Make Agent Work Visible For Trust
- Surface of work and review states are critical to trust when agents act autonomously inside products.
- Visual domains like spreadsheets or video make it easier to audit agent outputs and recover from errors.
Fulfill Promises Before You Scale AI
- Start small and visibly fulfill the promise of your AI features before expanding to broader agent capabilities.
- Use gradual rollouts and design cues to build user confidence before making the agent central to the product.