You're Already Behind

The most dangerous thing in business isn't competition. It's complacency.

It's also not understanding what's already possible.

Right now, there is a significant gap between what AI can do and what most people believe it can do. This information asymmetry will determine which companies survive and which entrepreneurs build the next generation of successful businesses.

The gap isn't closing. It's widening every day.

Let’s dive into where this Agency Theory concept originates and what it means going forward.

The Academic Foundation and Current Reality

Economists George Akerlof, Michael Spence, and Joseph Stiglitz first formalized the concept of information asymmetry in their Nobel Prize-winning work on markets with imperfect information. Akerlof's 1970 paper "The Market for Lemons" demonstrated how quality uncertainty creates market failures.

The concept directly connects to agency theory. Developed by Michael Jensen and William Meckling in 1976, agency theory examines relationships where one party acts on behalf of another. The principal-agent problem emerges when the agent has different incentives or information from the principal.

We're witnessing an entirely new form of agency now. Agentic AI systems act on our behalf with unprecedented capability (Ashoori, 2025).

Agentic will be Webster's Word of the Year (yes, that’s a prediction).

These systems don't just respond to prompts; they also anticipate and adapt to changing conditions. They execute multi-step tasks, make decisions, and operate with growing autonomy.

But here's the problem. The distribution and usage of Agentic AI remain catastrophically uneven.

William Gibson nailed it decades ago when he said:

This quote has never felt more relevant than it does with AI right now.

The Reality That Changes Everything

Saanya Ojha from Bain Capital Ventures captured this perfectly in her recent LinkedIn post:

Let me read that one part back again… “The only issue?… That "one day" happened two weeks ago at a demo day.”

I feel like I see this almost every day. The demo days are outpacing my actual days.

She also warned:

People are debating possibilities while others are already building the future. The tech accelerates while awareness crawls. Policy lags. Public conversation moves at a snail's pace.

Even imagination falls short of current reality.

Satya Nadella just declared:

Your apps aren't just getting replaced. They're becoming obsolete overnight.

Eric Schmidt predicts we'll see breakthrough "super-programmers" and "AI mathematicians" within two years. Software development becomes less constrained by physical limitations. Just code and feedback loops running millions of iterations in minutes.

According to recent IBM and Morning Consult research, 99% of developers are exploring or developing AI agents (IBM, 2025). Meanwhile, most executives are still asking basic questions about ChatGPT.

Your Action Plan Before It's Too Late

Step 1: Audit Your Current AI Understanding

Test yourself. Can you name three AI capabilities that became available in the last month? If not, you're already behind.

Step 2: Set Up Information Pipelines

Follow the builders, not the commentators. Subscribe to demo days. Join Discord communities where people ship actual products.

Step 3: Start Small, But Start Now

Start by hooking up an agent to your personal calendar or email (such as through Anthropic’s Claude 4.0 model). You can build personally to inform yourself professionally.

Step 4: Build Your Agentic Workflow

Identify one process in your work that involves multiple steps. Build an AI agent to handle it. Start with something simple. Learn the mechanics.

Reflection Questions:

What would your industry look like if every competitor had AI agents handling their routine work? Which of your current advantages disappear when AI democratizes expertise? What new opportunities emerge when barriers to entry collapse?

Last month, I covered how you can scale your AI usage:

The Barriers That Keep Most People Stuck

The biggest obstacle isn't technical complexity. It's psychological resistance to believing what's already possible. Stop doubting.

Most people wait for permission from authorities or institutions. They want official validation before accepting new realities.

By the time a consensus forms, the opportunity will have vanished.

There's also the comfort trap. Current systems work well enough. Why disrupt something that generates steady income?

This thinking worked in slower-moving periods. It's problematic in exponential times.

Legal and regulatory uncertainty creates another barrier (TechInformed, 2025). People want clear rules before acting. But regulation follows innovation, not the other way around.

The Stakes Are Higher Than Most Realize

This isn't about keeping up with trends. It's about survival in a rapidly reshaping economy.

Companies that miss this transition won't get a second chance. The speed of change makes it impossible to catch up.

Research indicates that the global AI agent market will grow from $5.1 billion in 2024 to $47.1 billion by 2030 (Alvarez & Marsal, 2025). Power concentrates in the hands of those who recognize and act on current capabilities. Everyone else becomes dependent on their systems and platforms.

We're not just talking about competitive advantage. We're talking about agency itself. The ability to control your economic destiny.

Again, Saanya Ojha warns about:

That world isn't hypothetical. It's being constructed right now.

The uneven distribution of understanding creates dangerous power imbalances. Those who master agentic AI systems will shape the rules for everyone else.

Your job isn't to predict the future. It's worth noticing what's already here.

Because you can't shape what you can't see, and you can't compete with what you don't understand.

The information asymmetry isn't just about AI capabilities. It's about recognizing that the future doesn't need our permission to arrive.

It just requires our attention.