The Right Track: Personal Agents For The Future

InnovationAIThe Right Track: Personal Agents For The FutureByJohn Werner,Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I am an MIT Senior Fellow & Lecturer, 5x-founder & VC investing in AIFollow AuthorMay 26, 2026, 11:50am EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.AI (Artificial Intelligence) concept. Deep learning. Visual contents.gettyWe’re at an interesting moment right now when it comes to artificial intelligence. For a couple of years, or really, ever since the first stirrings of publicly available “retail” AI tech, we’ve been scrutinizing what you might call the “first wave” of AI: LLMs that can approximate human cognition, but only in sort of a “Google search” way, providing, sorting, and generally dealing with information, in some ways an extension of an I/O model, albeit an amazingly human-like one.Now, though, we’re moving toward something new: autonomous task engines. As people continue to ponder: can we make AI entities sentient?, others are suggesting that, sentient or not, they can handle routine tasks for us, or even longer-frame, multi-step tasks.In that context, there’s a lot of thinking about what this will look like. Take an interview with Jenny Lay-Flurrie Trusted Technology Group set up by Microsoft in early 2025, in which Lay-Flurrie talks about advocacy for the blind and other aspects of equitable AI development.“How do we make sure that we build it right?” she said. “And how can we make sure that it stays right? Society is not always the most inclusive place, so there are instances where we have to insert data to train it.” A Panel DiscussionHere’s more on evaluating the advent of “personal agents,” task-assisters that will make our lives easier, with a group of experts in a panel at the Imagination in Action event last month. (Disclaimer: April’s IIA event is an annual conference that I help to facilitate.)MORE FOR YOUM...