8 hours ago
How AI Agents Are Redefining Tech Startups
Net Kohen, CEO of Linkme (valued at $100M+), shares insights on using technology to drive business success.
Not that long ago, the idea of a billion-dollar company being run by just a few people would've been laughed out of the room. Unicorn startups have always been associated with big teams, long hours and even longer funding rounds. But that picture is changing—and fast.
AI agents and automation aren't just making things more efficient; they're quietly redrawing the boundaries of what's possible in tech startups. We're heading toward a world where billion-dollar companies might be built and operated by teams of three or fewer people. It sounds crazy, but the shift is already underway.
If you're a tech leader, this is a wake-up call you can't afford to hit snooze on.
The Rise Of Autonomous AI Agents
AI agents have been around in some form for years—think chatbots or task automation tools. But what's different now is how smart and autonomous they've become. These agents can now make decisions, manage processes and even coordinate with other agents, all with minimal (sometimes no) human oversight.
What started as simple support bots has morphed into agents that can manage complex functions like marketing execution, sales outreach and even product iteration. Some agents are capable of creative problem-solving, financial modeling and generating new product strategies.
It's no longer a question of whether these agents can replace traditional functions; it's already happening. More founders are skipping the process of building out departments and instead deploying agents to handle the heavy lifting.
From 100-Person Teams To Three-Person Unicorns
Historically, scaling meant hiring more people. More engineers, more marketers, more customer support reps—the list goes on. The more you grew, the more people you needed to keep things running. AI agents flip that model on its head.
Now, a handful of founders can:
• Automate core functions, using agents trained on very specific datasets.
• Run go-to-market campaigns, where agents not only generate content but also optimize, A/B test and adjust strategies on the fly.
• Handle customer service at scale, with agents that can solve complex customer issues in multiple languages.
• Manage finance and compliance, reducing or even eliminating the need for a full back-office team.
In this way, three people with the right agent stack could build, launch and scale to unicorn status without following the old rules of scale.
What This Means For Tech Leaders
This moment isn't just about automation—it signals a deeper transformation in the very economic model underlying how companies are built. For tech leaders, investors and operators, the implications are far-reaching and demand careful attention. Traditional valuation metrics, such as headcount or conventional organizational hierarchies, will likely lose relevance. Instead, new indicators—like capital efficiency, the sophistication of agent orchestration and speed to market—will become central to how companies are assessed.
At the same time, we're likely to see the rise of a new kind of founder. Success won't necessarily hinge on deep technical expertise or operational management skills. The most effective leaders may be those who excel at orchestrating networks of AI agents—individuals who understand how to align autonomous tools toward a coherent vision.
This shift will also reshape organizational design itself. Rather than focusing on execution, human teams will be reoriented toward higher-order tasks like strategy, creativity and long-term direction. The actual "doing" will increasingly be handled by agents.
As this shift is already happening, it's important to understand what the next steps look like for such an approach.
How To Prepare For This Agent-First World
If you want to stay ahead of this wave, here are a few moves to start considering right now:
Map out your entire operating rhythm on a whiteboard—everything from marketing cadences and onboarding touchpoints to invoice runs and more. Then circle the steps that take up a lot of time but don't require human judgment. Ask yourself: What could ChatGPT handle? Those tasks are perfect candidates for automation with an AI agent.
Roll out one agent at a time, measure the lift and keep a running "kill list" of tasks you'll automate next quarter. The biggest hurdle is usually messy data, so budget a sprint for cleaning it up first. You'll free your team to chase opportunities instead of chasing checklists.
It's not enough to deploy a few bots and hope they behave. Tomorrow's standout leaders will know how to map dependencies, set guardrails and connect their agents together so they hand off work without dropping the ball.
You can start small, have a content creation agent feed a testing agent that fires results back to marketing and then iterate. Learn prompt design, basic APIs and data governance rules—they're the new managerial toolkit. Expect a learning curve, though. Agents can be brittle at first, but the compounding payoff is massive once they click into place.
Ask yourself, "If my burn rate were cut in half, how would I redeploy capital?" When fixed costs shrink, strategy changes. You can attack smaller, overlooked niches or spin up experiments that used to be too expensive. Model best-, base- and worst-case scenarios with sub-10-person teams and see where the economics break.
One warning—lean doesn't mean lax. Regulators, customers and investors will still expect airtight security, compliance and transparency, so bake those controls into your agent stack from day one.
Conclusion
AI agents aren't just tools; they're changing the entire game of tech entrepreneurship. The unicorns of the next decade probably won't look like the ones we know today. They'll be smaller, leaner and built on top of fleets of autonomous agents. For tech leaders willing to embrace this shift, the opportunity is enormous.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
