A Guide to Which AI to Use in the Agentic Era
A tier-2 commentary piece from One Useful Thing offering guidance on selecting AI systems in the current agentic era, signaling a shift in framing from chatbots to agents as the primary use-case paradigm. The piece appears to survey the landscape of available AI tools and their appropriate applications. As a practitioner-oriented guide, it reflects the growing complexity of the AI tooling ecosystem as agentic capabilities proliferate.
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An Opinionated Guide to Using AI Right Now
A tier-2 commentary piece from One Useful Thing offering opinionated guidance on which AI tools to use in late 2025. The piece likely surveys the current landscape of frontier models and recommends specific tools for specific tasks. As a practitioner-facing guide, it reflects the state of the AI tooling ecosystem as perceived by an influential commentator.
Real AI Agents and Real Work
A commentary piece from One Useful Thing examining the practical deployment of AI agents in real work contexts, framing the tension between human-centered work and AI-generated productivity outputs. The piece appears to analyze how autonomous AI agents are changing knowledge work workflows. Published by a Tier 2 source known for applied AI analysis aimed at practitioners and researchers.
Making AI Work: Leadership, Lab, and Crowd
This commentary from One Useful Thing proposes a framework for organizational AI adoption centered on three elements: leadership commitment, structured experimentation (lab), and distributed employee engagement (crowd). The piece offers practical guidance for companies navigating AI integration. As a tier-2 commentary source, it reflects practitioner thinking on enterprise AI deployment patterns rather than reporting new technical developments.
Rethinking Organizational Design in the Age of Agentic AI
A MIT Technology Review commentary examines the gap between enterprise ambition and readiness for agentic AI adoption, citing survey data showing 85% of organizations want to be agentic within three years but 76% say their current infrastructure cannot support that transition. The piece focuses on organizational design challenges—people, processes, and workflows—as the primary barriers to agentic AI deployment at scale.
Management as AI Superpower
This commentary from One Useful Thing argues that management skills are becoming a critical capability for individuals working with AI agents. The piece frames the ability to direct, coordinate, and evaluate AI agents as analogous to managing human teams, suggesting that organizational and managerial competencies will differentiate effective AI users. It positions this as a key survival skill for the emerging era of agentic AI systems.
AI Agents Are Here. What Now?
A Hugging Face Ethics and Society blog post examines the current state of AI agents and the ethical, safety, and societal questions they raise. The piece likely covers concerns around autonomous decision-making, accountability, and deployment risks as agentic systems become more prevalent. Published in January 2025, it reflects growing institutional attention to agent-specific risks beyond general AI safety.
On Working with Wizards
A commentary piece from One Useful Thing exploring the metaphor of AI systems as 'wizards' and the challenge of working with them on the 'jagged frontier' of capabilities. The piece likely addresses how users can effectively verify and leverage AI outputs given the uneven and unpredictable nature of current model capabilities. As a tier-2 commentary source, it offers practitioner-level perspective on human-AI collaboration patterns.
AI companies are pivoting from creating gods to building products. Good.
This commentary argues that AI companies are shifting strategic focus from pursuing AGI-level capabilities toward building practical, deployable products. The piece identifies five key challenges that arise when converting raw models into market-ready products. Published on a Tier 2 source, it reflects a broader industry narrative about the maturation of AI commercialization strategies.