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How to build AI agents to automate your work

Sully Omar shares his techniques for AI-powered workflows in our first ever live workshop.

Event Recap free
Topic: automation Role: general Category: coding-and-devops

Published 2024-12-11

I’m super excited to kick off live workshops at Ben’s Bites. We’ve been mulling over running events for a while and finally, thanks to rising demand, we’ve bitten the bullet.

Our first workshop was with Sully Omar, co-founder and CEO of Cognosys and the mind behind Otto.

In the 60-minute session, Sully pulled back the curtain on the world of AI agents and work automation. From maximizing existing AI tools to building custom agents, Sully shared techniques that could reshape how we approach productivity in the AI age.

It was an insightful hour that is one to watch if you’re curious about how AI can work beyond just ChatGPT.

Here’s a taster of what Sully uncovered in the workshop.

Better AI prompting using XML tags

Sully kicked off things with a lesser-known approach to interacting with AI tools: using XML tags to structure prompts. Not many people know how to prompt like this, but it leads to more precise and useful outputs. Honestly, everyone should be doing it.

"When you reply, always use XML tags to show your thinking," Sully told us. "Start by including your thoughts and reasoning, then the actual output. This way, you're giving the AI a step-by-step guide instead of throwing it into the deep end."

This technique isn't just about getting better responses; it's about transforming how we communicate with AI.

Sully then went on to show us in real time how to use this technique to elevate tasks from email writing to complex data analysis, potentially saving hours of work.

The unexpected AI assistant: Your screen

I wouldn’t say I’m surprised often these days, but I genuinely wasn’t expecting what came next. Using Google's Gemini, Sully showed how a simple screen recording could be turned into a comprehensive AI analysis.

"I recorded a walkthrough of my company's landing page and asked the AI for critique," Sully shared. "The level of detail in its feedback was astonishing – it was as if the AI was right there with me, pointing out things I'd never noticed."

This kind of advancement opens up exciting possibilities for UI/UX design, product development, and even personal productivity. Imagine getting instant, AI-powered feedback on your presentations or product demos – the potential is mind-boggling.

Otto: The future of AI agents?

I’d say the highlight of the was Sully’s deep dive into Otto, a platform that's redefining how we create and deploy AI agents.

"We've put AI agents into tables," Sully explained. "Each column becomes its own AI agent, capable of thinking, reasoning, and solving specific tasks. And the best part? You can deploy hundreds of these agents at scale."

Sully showcased using Otto for everything from personalizing mass email outreach to scraping and analyzing web data. But what really caught my attention was its approach to the persistent issue of AI hallucinations.

"Hallucinations are the number one thing we're tackling," Sully stated. "For every piece of data, we provide the AI's reasoning and sources. You can verify everything, making the data trustworthy in a way that's been hard to achieve with AI until now."

The secret sauce: Web scraping on steroids

Sully walked through Otto’s web scraping capabilities. With just a few clicks, he set up a system to automatically gather and analyze data from multiple websites.

"Imagine being able to scrape hundreds of websites, extract specific data points, and have it all analyzed by AI – all without writing a single line of code. That's the power we're putting in people's hands."

This feature alone could make a huge difference for market researchers, content creators, and anyone who needs to gather and analyze large amounts of online data regularly.

The road ahead

As the workshop wrapped up, it was clear that we'd only scratched the surface of what's possible with AI agents. Sully hinted at future developments that could make Otto even more powerful:

"We're working on integrations that will allow Otto to hook directly into your existing workflows – Slack, email, CRMs, you name it," he revealed. "The goal is to have AI agents that can truly act on your behalf, not just analyze data."

While the full potential of these technologies is still unfolding, one thing is certain: the future of work is being reshaped before our eyes.

Want to see these game-changing techniques and tools in action? The full workshop recording is available exclusively to our Pro subscribers. Sign up now to get access to Sully’s recording and all future workshops.

Don't just read about the future of work – learn how to create it.

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