Season 1, Episode 2 of "5 Minutes" – documenting SMOC's journey toward becoming a fully AI-driven company.
In 5 minutes, a customer can have their first AI sales agent live. We're not there yet – but we're closer than ever, and I'm going to show you the entire journey.This is Season 1 of a new series I'm calling "5 Minutes" – our goal of enabling any customer to launch their first AI sales agent in under 5 minutes.
People say it's especially senior developers and technically experienced product managers who get superpowers from AI. I think that's true – and here's why.
AI models today are extremely capable of starting something. You describe what you want, and they get going. But code quality is often low, and without clear guidance you end up in an endless loop of iterations – where the result is eventually okay, but far from ideal.
The most accurate way to think about it: AI is an extremely productive junior developer that requires a lot of guidance.
The most effective workflow I've found is this: ask AI to create a specification and plan before it writes a single line of code. Give feedback on the architecture a couple of rounds. Then set it to work – and let it validate its own output. The result is dramatically better than simply saying "build this."
The problem arises when a junior without enough experience guides the AI junior. They amplify each other's weaknesses, and the result reflects that. You can of course have a senior step in to guide – but then that senior is spending time on what used to be valuable training work, which now just slows down progress.
This is controversial, but I believe it's reality: training junior developers the traditional way is going to get harder. The simple tasks that have always been the entry point to building real experience – they're disappearing. At least in a company like ours, where every decision and every handover is time-critical.
And this isn't unique to software development. I see the same dynamic emerging in finance, design, and legal services. Those who master leading AI well will have an enormous advantage. Those who don't will keep iterating in circles.
We're not there yet. But we're closer than ever.
