The next phase of artificial intelligence has arrived: AI agents. While much of the buzz focuses on tech giants developing their own agents, like Amazon, Google, and OpenAI, solopreneurs and early-stage startups should be thinking about them too.

I launched my company two decades ago , and I still remember the moment we hired our first employee. Suddenly, I could spend less time on repetitive tasks and more time focusing on our users—understanding their pain points, improving their experience, and ultimately scaling the business.

AI agents can offer startup founders a similar shift. By automating routine, manual work, from customer support to internal operations, agents can free leaders to focus on the decisions, relationships, and innovation that truly enable growth.

But adopting agents is a strategic choice. Before integrating them into your organization, here are five questions every founder should ask.

Which Customer-Facing Tasks Should AI Agents Handle?

It’s Friday night, and you’re searching for a movie to watch with your partner. What do you trust more: the Netflix algorithm or a strong recommendation from your sister? Or in a romantic context, would you rather meet someone suggested by your best friend or a dating app? People tend to have more confidence in human intuition when it comes to these kinds of subjective choices. On the other hand, for routine, objective tasks, people are comfortable relying on AI.

When it comes to AI agents, people are more willing to use them in contexts with low stakes and predictable outcomes, according to research . For more personally meaningful tasks and decisions, they still prefer the human touch.

As you consider how to use AI agents in your company, think carefully about which tasks are low-stakes versus high-stakes for your users. They may not think twice about interacting with an agent to set up a recurring monthly order. But when it comes to higher-stakes decisions—like choosing among models for a costly purchase—human interaction may be the smart choice.

A simple rule of thumb: if a decision or interaction is likely to trigger an emotional response, keep a human in the loop. For more neutral contexts, AI agents can execute efficiently.

How Could AI Agents Make Your Customer Experience More Empathetic?

It might sound counterintuitive, but using AI agents can help your company have more empathetic interactions with users. That can make a huge difference. In a global survey , 30% of customers said they’d walk away from a brand after just one bad interaction. AI agents can help surface insights that allow employees to better understand and respond to customers, and help ensure each interaction is positive. They also free up employees to focus on human-centered tasks that require listening and making users feel seen.

The question for founders becomes: how can our employees collaborate with AI agents to improve the customer experience and ensure our users feel heard? How can agents help us adapt to customer needs where it matters most?

For example, a startup can set up AI agents to parse through huge volumes of customer feedback—support tickets, reviews, and chat transcripts—to spot patterns in user pain points. Instead of spending hours combing through that data, employees can get a head start in understanding where customers feel frustrated and offer more thoughtful, tailored responses.

In other words, AI agents shouldn’t replace empathy; they simply create more time and space for it.

Can AI Agents Strengthen Your Organization’s Security?

Cybercrime is an ever-increasing threat to companies, far too common—and costly—to be ignored. The average data breach cost companies $4.9 million last year. And cyber attackers aren’t just after the big fish—45% of all cyber attacks in 2025 targeted small to midsize businesses, according to recent statistics .

With the rise in threats, security teams and even solo founders can easily become overburdened trying to put out every fire. That’s why I recommend seriously considering how AI agents can strengthen your organization’s security. Depending on your company’s needs, they can proactively monitor system behaviors, identify anomalies, classify alerts (including which to escalate to employees), and prevent data breaches.

Jotform’s AI Agents for forms, for example, help automate and streamline the data collection process, reducing manual intervention and potential security gaps. They can ensure sensitive data is handled properly, alert teams to red flags, and request additional verification from users. For users, interactions are more engaging. Meanwhile, human team members can focus on more sophisticated issues.

Can You Observe And Understand How Your AI Agents Make Decisions?

Especially for a spread-thin solopreneur, AI agents might sound too good to be true. It’s crucial, however, to keep the risks in mind—including the safeguards that need to be in place.

Ask yourself: can you observe and understand how your agents make decisions?

First, determine where a human should verify an agent’s actions. Then, ensure you can review an agent’s decision process whenever needed. Delegating decision-making to AI can have serious implications, so transparency is essential.

Build and train agent systems in a way that maintains this level of clarity. While this might sound like a feat for coders, many modern agent platforms allow you to set up your agent using natural language. You can train agents to log their decision steps, giving you a clearer view of how they arrived at many of their outputs.

Do You Have A System To Continuously Review And Improve Your AI Agents?

Finally, once you’ve implemented your AI agents, don’t forget to include systems for training and monitoring them on an ongoing basis. Your business, your user base, and the tech landscape (including emerging threats) are all continuously evolving. Even today, in my own business, 20 years later, I’m reminded of the importance of regularly auditing our internal AI systems and agents.

This helps us recognize new opportunities—and spot potential threats. It also ensures the agents remain optimized for our business today. In practice, that means scheduling regular, structured reviews—like a quarterly “tech deck” check—where you examine agent behavior, performance logs, and any updates to tasks or rules to make sure everything is functioning properly and up to date.

Agents may seem like a big bite and a lot to chew. But the initial investment will pay off in terms of satisfied customers, and that matters more than ever. Customer-obsessed organizations report 41% faster revenue growth, 49% faster profit growth, and 51% better customer retention than non-customer-obsessed organizations, according to The Forrester CX Report . AI agents can help you cultivate that healthy obsession.