I remember when programmatic was the word nobody could define. Header bidding, DSPs, SSPs, PMPs, horizontal auctions - we used to sit on panels debating what "programmatic" actually meant, because everyone used it for whatever they wanted it to mean. Sound familiar?
Back then I spent hours in rooms with whiteboards, learning the plumbing (and the lingo). It was painful. But it meant I could fight for resources at the exec table, back the team when they needed budget and help them navigate vendors... and our CFO who was demanding returns and immediate growth.
We grew Guardian ad revenue when everyone else's was falling because we drove programmatic hard. I'm not taking credit for that - the team were amazing - but I will take credit for giving them exec air cover: the budget, the headcount, the protection from short-term thinking and the backing when vendors or the CFO pushed back. And I could only do that because I understood it at the right level - not in the weeds, not at 30,000ft, but at the level a C-suite exec actually needs to make decisions and back their team.
That's what I'm trying to offer here for AI.
Because at some point soon - if it hasn't happened already - someone's going to walk into your office asking for budget for "an AI project". Or a vendor's going to pitch you "an AI solution". Or the board's going to ask what your AI strategy is.
And you need to know enough to ask: what type of AI? How complex? Is that the right level for the problem? Is this priced right for what it is?
You don't need to know how the models work. But you do need the vocabulary to have the conversation and a sense of what's actually possible.
So here's my working framework:
Chat (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok if you're a perv)
Agentic workflows (you tell AI to do a predefined set of things, it returns with results, you decide what to do next)
Agents (you give it an objective and it figures out how to achieve it)
Agentic systems (you create an AI boss, give it the overall objective and it decides which agents to create, what systems to interact with, what data to collect, when good is good enough and so on)
That's a rough hierarchy and the lines blur - but it's useful for thinking about what you're actually buying or building. And it's a hell of a range.
I remember when digital was new. I was the junior who actually understood it and my bosses just nodded along hoping I wasn't bullshitting them. I ran rings around them. That wasn't good for them. Don't be them.
If you want help figuring out where to start, that's what we do at AgentFlow. We help you work out where all these AI levels actually fit in your business - whether that's making your team more productive, unlocking new revenue or just making yourself easier to deal with - then build the right solution and support it as you grow. We start with discovery, then figure out what's actually worth building.
DM me or find us at www.goagentflow.com.
I'm going to try and do more of this - helping C-suite navigate the AI madness. Follow along if that's useful.
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