From Basic Prompts to Agent-Driven Automation

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]Three levels of AI use.

[00:00:02]You're on one.

[00:00:04]Most people don't realize it.

[00:00:06]This lesson takes you up two.

[00:00:09]Level one, prompt and pray.

[00:00:12]Level two, prompt with structure.

[00:00:15]Level three, agents that do the work for you.

[00:00:18]Three secret Claude commands.

[00:00:21]Ultra think for deep reasoning.

[00:00:23]Caveman for token efficiency.

[00:00:26]Insights for self-coaching.

[00:00:28]When to use which?

[00:00:30]Ultra think when wrong is expensive.

[00:00:33]Caveman when verbose is expensive.

[00:00:36]Match the command to the stakes.

[00:00:39]Microsoft Copilot wave three changed the game.

[00:00:42]Autonomous agents in Excel, Word, and Outlook.

[00:00:46]If you're not running them, you're competing one-handed.

[00:00:50]An agent does five things.

[00:00:52]Receive task.

[00:00:54]Plan steps.

[00:00:56]Use tools.

[00:00:58]Check results.

[00:01:00]Report back.

[00:01:01]Miss any of these, it's a script, not an agent.

[00:01:05]Three you can build today.

[00:01:08]Email triage in Outlook.

[00:01:10]Weekly report from Excel.

[00:01:12]Meeting prep brief from your calendar.

[00:01:16]Before you deploy an agent, ask four questions.

[00:01:19]Who pulls the trigger?

[00:01:21]What data can it touch?

[00:01:23]What's the worst case?

[00:01:25]How do you roll it back?

[00:01:28]Make AI coach you.

[00:01:30]What did I miss?

[00:01:31]What would a critic say?

[00:01:33]Rate my last response one to 10.

[00:01:37]Your next seven days.

[00:01:39]Try the commands.

[00:01:41]Install Copilot.

[00:01:43]Build one agent.

[00:01:45]Post it in the community.

[00:01:47]Then come back for lesson two.