​Hello, AI enthusiasts from around the world.

Welcome to this week’s newsletter for the AI and the Future of Work podcast.

Getting to the top of your field is never easy. You have to work through challenges and build a signature product that stands out.

That journey teaches you a lot. And as more people start using your product, it’s easy to feel like you’ve found the right formula.

Then AI comes along and changes everything you thought you knew.

What made you successful in the past won’t work for AI-first products. To build well in this new era, you need an open mind and a clean canvas.

The problem is, not many companies have the maturity to do that.

Today’s conversation reminds us that letting go of the past is hard, especially when that past is what made you great. But it’s the only way to embrace the power and possibility of what’s ahead.

Let’s dive into this week’s highlights! 🚀

🎙️New podcast episode with Daniel Lereya, CPTO at monday.com

Ask any software engineer about finding a bug in the past, and they’ll remember the process clearly. You gave software an input and expected a defined output.

If something didn’t match expectations, you knew something was wrong. The hunt was on.

That hunt has changed. In many ways, it has disappeared.

We’re now writing code that writes code. That shift opens the door to new possibilities, along with unintended consequences.

The bug, as we knew it, is no longer clear. We don’t always know what a “bug” is anymore.

So how do you build AI systems that don’t return a single answer, but a range of possibilities?

The pace of change is hard to ignore. What we’re building today would have felt out of reach just two years ago. This shift requires a new mindset, not only for developers, but for end users as well.

That’s one of the core challenges Daniel Lereya has faced as Chief Product and Technology Officer at monday.com, the AI work platform trusted by 60% of the Fortune 500 and valued at around $8 billion.

He joined when the company had 30 people and $4.5M in ARR. His team started with five members. Today, monday.com has grown to 900 people and surpassed $1 billion in ARR.

Daniel sat down with PeopleReign CEO Dan Turchin to share how monday.com approaches AI and what they’ve learned along the way.

One idea stands out. You don’t build to impress. You build for function.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Why the instincts that made monday.com successful are the same ones the company had to unlearn to build AI-first products.

• Why many teams still don’t understand the difference between a demo that impresses and an agent that works in production.

• Why wrapping AI inside structured workflows leads to better results than giving agents full autonomy, a lesson monday.com learned the hard way.

• What happened when 2,000 of 3,000 monday.com employees built their own apps in just two weeks, and what this revealed about who gets to build software.

• Why, when an AI agent makes a mistake, the real question leaders should ask has little to do with the technology.

• Why the biggest barrier to AI adoption isn’t the technology, and why companies shouldn’t wait to get started.

🎧 This week's episode of AI and the Future of Work, featuring Daniel Lereya, monday.com CTPO, is now available.

Listen to the full episode to hear Daniel draw from nearly a decade of scaling one of the world’s most widely used work platforms, and explain why AI changes everything we thought we knew, forcing us to rethink product building from the ground up.

📖 AI Fun Fact Article

Big players like Google, OpenAI, and Visa are shaping the future of AI-driven commerce. Competition between their protocols is starting to intensify.

Emilia David explains in VentureBeat how chat platforms like ChatGPT are moving beyond search. Instead of browsing, users could rely on agents to complete transactions securely on their behalf.

In that world, AI-powered commerce becomes a natural extension of how these systems operate. But a shared standard is still far away.

Google introduced the Agent Pay Protocol (AP2) with partners like PayPal, American Express, Mastercard, Salesforce, and ServiceNow.

Around the same time, OpenAI and Stripe launched the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), while Visa introduced the Trusted Agent Protocol.

It’s still unclear which approach will lead. What’s clearer is the pace. Adoption is moving faster than in past technology cycles.

That speed creates new challenges. Enterprises and consumers risk getting stuck between systems that don’t work well together. At the center of all this is trust.

Organizations need to know that the agent contacting them is acting on behalf of a real customer. Each protocol is trying to solve that problem in its own way.

The number of competing proposals shows how early we still are. Fully autonomous shopping agents are not here yet, but the foundation is taking shape.

PeopleReign CEO Dan Turchin believes that what remains to be seen is whether the AI commerce experience is better than the alternative. We often hear about booking flights or ordering groceries via ChatGPT. In his personal experience using early versions of both, he sees no benefit in switching.

Dan expects AI-first features built into shopping sites, rather than shopping sites built into chatbots. For example, the AI navigation features in products like Etsy and Google Flight Search are far superior to self-proclaimed alternatives from Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini.

Owning commerce may be existential for OpenAI as it looks to monetize its roughly 900 million weekly active users, but it’s clear that what’s best for OpenAI isn’t necessarily best for consumers.

The past is prologue here. There’s a reason why virtual trade shows and NFT markets failed.

🏆 Recognized Again

AI and the Future of Work was named one of The Top Future of Work Podcasts That Will Make You Rethink Work As We Know It by Allwork.Space, alongside shows from Harvard Business School and MIT Technology Review.

This is the conversation the industry keeps coming back to. We're glad you're part of it.

AI is reshaping work. This podcast is helping people navigate that. Spread the word.

Worth A Read

Until next time, stay curious! 🤔

That's a Wrap for This Week!

You will forget much of what you knew about building products. That’s how powerful AI is. But leading in this moment is not only about using AI.

It’s about understanding its power, its possibilities, and its mistakes, all of which are new.

Addressing AI adoption in your company isn’t only about introducing a technology. It’s about changing an entire mindset.

We hope this week’s conversation inspires you to drive change in your organization and to invite others to approach the future with an open mind.

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