The Agentic Age — Season One

Eight episodes. One firm that automated the most human work it had, and could not see what it lost.

The Agentic Age follows Maren Castellano, an independent change consultant hired to certify a success. The AI agent has been adopted quickly and completely. Adoption is high, the dashboard is green, and the firm wants her to help carry the win into the next function. Then a case surfaces that every measure the firm keeps says went well.

It is written for people who run these implementations. The failure at the center of it is quiet, and it clears every dashboard on its way through, which is what makes it worth eight episodes.

Start with Episode 1 → Or start at Episode 3, where the story opened on LinkedIn. It stands on its own.

Season One · Everybody Loves Agents

Episode 1 The Arrival Maren arrives at a firm celebrating a clean success. The numbers are good, the room is happy, and one person steps away from the party. Episode 2 The Snag The success has a listening session on the calendar. Maren starts to notice what the celebration left out. Episode 3 The Clean Record A video of a laid-off man in a parking lot reaches the third floor. Maren starts reading the closed cases one by one. Episode 4 The Cost of Saying So What the firm did with an earlier round of feedback becomes the question Maren cannot put down. Episode 5 The Same Room A board packet reminds Maren of a sentence she changed three years ago. Two cases, the same shape. Episode 6 What the Loops Were For Desmond finds the raw export the firm filed away, and the counting finally has something underneath it. Episode 7 Landing It The recovery Maren designed meets the firm's habit of moving work before the work is ready. Episode 8 The Expensive Recovery The recovery is real and so are its costs. The firm can finally see the case it could not see before.

After the season

The Debrief Practitioner to practitioner: the failure Maren spent the season learning to see, and what it means for the way we work now. A Note from the Author Why this season exists, and the field guide it points to.