Sample lesson · The AI with Breakfast Challenge

What's an AI agent?

You've heard the word everywhere. Here's what it actually means, in plain English, and how to stay in charge when AI starts doing jobs for you.

Learn: 3 min
Try it: 5 min
Quiz: 1 min, optional

Your agent

Monday · 08:02

Sort my inbox after my week off.

Read all 143 emails
Found 9 that need you today
Drafted 6 short replies

Checking in

Shall I send these 6 replies?

Send themLet me look first

Part 1 of 3

Learn

The lesson

Good morning, and welcome to your sample lesson.

This is what every morning of the challenge looks like: a short lesson to watch, listen to or read, then something to try on your own work. Today’s is a word you’ve probably heard a lot lately, and maybe nodded along to.

It’s Monday morning. You’re back from a week off, and there are 143 emails waiting.

With the AI most people use, you’d copy one email into a chat and ask for a summary. Then the next one. Then the next. It helps, but you’re still the one going through every message.

Now imagine handing over the whole job instead: “Go through my inbox, tell me what needs me today, and draft replies to the rest.” That’s an AI agent.

Chat answers. Agents do.

A chat is a conversation. You ask, it answers, and you decide what happens next. Every step goes through you.

An agent is given a goal, not a question. It works out the steps, uses the tools it’s allowed to use, like your email, your calendar or the web, checks how it’s going, and comes back to you with the result.

Chat

Answers one question at a time

YouYou paste in one email
AIIt summarises it
YouYou decide what to do
YouRepeat for the next one

× 143 You do this for every email.

Agent

Takes the steps towards a goal

YouYou give it the goal
AIIt plans the steps
AIIt works through your inbox
AIIt checks with you before sending
AIIt reports back

× 1 You hand over the job once.

Same inbox, same AI underneath. The difference is who does the steps.

It works at home too. “Find three dates next month when the whole family is free, and suggest a restaurant everyone can eat at” is a goal, not a question. That’s agent work.

What makes it an agent

Strip away the hype, and every agent has the same four parts.

1
A goal
A job to finish, not a question to answer.
“Sort my inbox after my week off.”
2
Tools
The things it's allowed to use.
Your email, your calendar, the web.
3
Steps on its own
It works out what to do next, so you don't have to ask at every step.
Reads, sorts, drafts.
4
Check-ins
It stops and asks before anything that matters.
“Shall I send these six replies?”

Take away any one of the four, and it’s back to being a chat, or something you shouldn’t trust with your inbox.

You’ll find agents in most of the big AI apps now, including ChatGPT, Claude and Copilot, often on paid plans and under names that change every few months. The names change. These four parts don’t.

You stay in charge

Think of an agent as a capable assistant in their first week: happy to do the legwork, but you sign off anything that matters. A good agent asks before it sends an email, spends money or deletes anything. If one doesn’t, don’t give it that job.

And you don’t need an agent to start thinking like one. That’s what you’ll try next.

Part 2 of 3

Try it

About 5 minutes, in the AI app you use.

Plan it like an agent

Pick a job with a few steps to it, at work or at home, and have your AI plan it the way an agent would. It’s about 5 minutes, and a free account is fine.

Nothing you type here is sent to us. It only reaches an AI when you copy it and paste it in yourself.

1
Your goal
Start from one of these, or write your own. Say what “done” looks like.
Sort out my inbox after a week off: tell me what needs me today, and draft short replies to anything simple.

Ask for the plan

Copy this into Claude, ChatGPT or Copilot.

Prompt

I'd like you to work like an AI agent on this goal:
Sort out my inbox after a week off: tell me what needs me today, and draft short replies to anything simple.

Before you do anything:
1. List the steps you'd take, in order.
2. For each step, say what you'd need: information from me, a file, or a tool like email, a calendar or the web.
3. Mark every step where you'd stop and check with me first.

Then do the first step you can do with what you have, and tell me what you need from me for the rest.

3
Read the plan like a manager
Three things to look for in what comes back.
- Did it break the job into steps? That's the plan an agent would follow, and you can check it before anything happens.
- Where would it stop and ask you? Those are the moments you'd stay in charge of. Did it miss any you'd want?
- Which steps could you hand over? Anything that needed a tool it doesn't have, like your inbox, is where an agent would take over from you.

Part 3 of 3

QuizOptional

Three questions, about a minute.

Check your understandingThis isn’t a test. It’s a quick way to sense-check the lesson for yourself. Pick your answers, then check them and see how they compare.Open the quiz

Question 1 of 3

What's the main difference between a chat and an AI agent?

Question 2 of 3

Which of these jobs suits an agent best?

Question 3 of 3

When should a good agent stop and ask you?

0 of 3 answered

Pick an answer for each question. Change your mind as often as you like, then check them.

That’s the sample

The challenge is 23 mornings like this one.

$23, a dollar a day. Start Day 1 as soon as you join.

Join the challenge