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The Neuron: AI Explained · Yesterday · 1 hr 59 min

BONUS: How to Use AI Agents for Total Beginners: A Crash Course w/ Agent Builder James McAulay

This is the #1 request we get every week: how to actually use agents to save time in your business. We’re bringing in James McAulay, founder of The Agent Accelerator, for a practical crash course on what AI agents are, how they work, and how beginners can start using them to get real work done. James has spent the past year building at the front lines of the agent economy. After helping ElevenLabs grow from $110M to more than $300M in annual recurring revenue, he launched a fully AI-native business that reached $80K in monthly revenue by its third month and recorded its first $200K+ month by month five. He did it without a single employee or a dollar spent on paid ads. Instead, James delegates work to multiple AI agents every day. Through The Agent Accelerator, James now teaches founders, CEOs, and their teams how to become AI-native. The program has trained more than 400 people across 100 companies, including startups, 200-person organizations, and the UK Government. Participants report automating an average of five hours of manual work every week after four weeks. In our session, James is going to teach: EVERYTHING you need to build helpful, proactive agents in Claude Cowork/Code He'll walk through the following concepts: • Quick primer on agent foundations: how do we move from prompting a chatbot to delegating Agentic work • Starting your second brain: the key files that make the biggest difference • Tips & tricks for optimizing Claude's behavior with CLAUDE.md • Skills - where to find good ones - how to create great ones • And his 4-level framework for proactive agents that work without being prompted in Cowork and Code Format will be a blend of James teaching concepts, screensharing, and showing demos of his own setup. Whether you have experimented with a few AI tools or have no idea where to begin, this session will help you understand what agents can realistically do and how to start using them. Learn more about James and The Agent Accelerator:https://agentaccelerator.ai/

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This is the #1 request we get every week: how to actually use agents to save time in your business.


We’re bringing in James McAulay, founder of The Agent Accelerator, for a practical crash course on what AI agents are, how they work, and how beginners can start using them to get real work done.


James has spent the past year building at the front lines of the agent economy. After helping ElevenLabs grow from $110M to more than $300M in annual recurring revenue, he launched a fully AI-native business that reached $80K in monthly revenue by its third month and recorded its first $200K+ month by month five.


He did it without a single employee or a dollar spent on paid ads. Instead, James delegates work to multiple AI agents every day.


Through The Agent Accelerator, James now teaches founders, CEOs, and their teams how to become AI-native. The program has trained more than 400 people across 100 companies, including startups, 200-person organizations, and the UK Government. Participants report automating an average of five hours of manual work every week after four weeks.


In our session, James is going to teach:


EVERYTHING you need to build helpful, proactive agents in Claude Cowork/Code


He'll walk through the following concepts:

• Quick primer on agent foundations: how do we move from prompting a chatbot to delegating Agentic work

• Starting your second brain: the key files that make the biggest difference

• Tips & tricks for optimizing Claude's behavior with CLAUDE.md

• Skills

- where to find good ones

- how to create great ones

• And his 4-level framework for proactive agents that work without being prompted in Cowork and Code


Format will be a blend of James teaching concepts, screensharing, and showing demos of his own setup.


Whether you have experimented with a few AI tools or have no idea where to begin, this session will help you understand what agents can realistically do and how to start using them.


Learn more about James and The Agent Accelerator:https://agentaccelerator.ai/

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