98: How to Build AI Agents That Automate Workflows Without Coding with Etan Polinger

**Etan Polinger** (0:00)
Trying to automate what you're bad at isn't always the best first step. Sometimes it's good to enhance what you're really good at and make yourself exceptionally faster at it.

**Chris Daigle** (0:08)
Hey, I don't know much about AI, but let me go build an agent. Doesn't seem too reasonable. Where should they get started?

**Etan Polinger** (0:12)
Truly the best place to start is to articulate what you really want. What am I after here? Because it can be an agent, it can be other things, but we have a ability and access to a tool that has infinite abilities to give us a lot of great answers if we know how to ask the right question.

**Chris Daigle** (0:26)
What's really possible and what is not yet possible for somebody like me who doesn't have a lot of the background when I get in front of these tools?

**Etan Polinger** (0:34)
The foundations of building a good agent can transfer to any platform. It doesn't change, it doesn't matter. If you can do it right in one place, you can do it right in another place. And I think that's the key.

**Chris Daigle** (0:43)
Who's coming to you to learn this stuff?

**Etan Polinger** (0:45)
There's a wide range of individuals who want to have this skill.

**Chris Daigle** (0:48)
How long does it take for somebody like me to know how to follow that Scouts framework?

**Etan Polinger** (0:56)
As far as learning it, again, I've seen it happen in as little as 90 minutes.

**Chris Daigle** (0:59)
How could somebody at least take that next step to start to not get left behind?

**Etan Polinger** (1:05)
Take a look at your job, the deliverables that you're meant to do, and have a conversation with AI on how it can help you. And I would start with creating a prompt even that you use over and over again. If it's not a full automation, say, you know, what would be a good prompt, a good request I can make to AI that gets me a deliverable that I like a certain way? How would I build that?

**Chris Daigle** (1:22)
Etan helps companies bridge the gap between AI hype and execution, giving leaders practical frameworks to build agents, automate workflows and turn business bottlenecks into scalable solutions. Welcome to Using AI at Work. I'm your host, Chris Daigle. Each week, we'll be learning how today's business owners, entrepreneurs and ambitious professionals are getting more done with smart use of tomorrow's tech. Let's get started. Right now, every business leader is asking the same question. What are we going to do about AI? If this is you, chiefaiofficer.com has the answer. We'll give you a simple path forward where we provide executive and team training, so your people know exactly how to safely use Generative AI in their day to day. We also manage the deployment and implementation to make sure tools actually get adopted and deliver results. And we'll also guide company-wide transformation, so AI becomes part of your operating system, not just another shiny object. The companies that act now will increase productivity, cut costs, and grow faster than their competitors. Those that wait will get left behind. So if you want to make AI work in your business, visit chiefaiofficer.com and see how we're helping companies of all sizes finally get results from AI. Hi everybody and welcome back to another episode of Using AI at Work. My name is Chris Daigle. I'm the host and we're joined today by my guest Etan Polinger, who I actually share an office with and one of our locations for our company at chiefaiofficer.com.
Etan is our resident genius when it comes to automations, agents, apps and doing all the things that we're seeing a lot of non-technical business professionals be able to do now with tools like Lovable and Cursor and Claude Code and now OpenClaw. So Etan, before we get started, I'm going to do the Eisenberg move and say by the end of this episode, what do you want people to walk away with?

**Etan Polinger** (3:16)
I would want people to walk away with a few things, likely. One would be that when we are talking about the space that we're about to, which can get technical, the foundations of what we are going to talk about are quite simple. And how they can be used has infinite possibility, but I want everyone to remember and be grounded. And we'll be talking about real principles that are grounded in basic things we all know and understand well, while they can become much more complex in execution. But their theory understanding is very simple. So my goal is to demystify perhaps, or help make concrete some of these things that people are hearing about right now about this space. The evolution is obviously crazy. So having an understanding that is, oh, I can get this and I can stay with this, I understand what's happening, and possibly have some new things they can use today, and understand how to go to.