For the past year, there’s been one phrase I can’t escape: AI agents. It’s everywhere. Founders on social media bragging about how many AI agents they have running their businesses. Threads breaking down the latest use case. Headlines warning that AI agents have gone rogue.

Whether you’re excited, skeptical or flat-out scared, you’ve heard the term. And if you’re like me, you’ve nodded along for months without fully understanding what it means.

That changed on my recent trip to Bali. During a conversation, a friend mentioned that they had AI agents analyzing and managing their email. Not a person. Not an app they had to check. Agents, working in the background, sorting through the noise so they didn’t have to.

That was my breaking point. Enough was enough.

So on the 20-plus-hour flight back to Los Angeles, I made myself a promise. At the very least, I was going to figure out what these AI agents actually are. Ten hours into that flight, I had built six of them.

One helps me prioritize my emails, so the messages that matter rise to the top instead of getting buried under press releases and promotions. Another adds events to my calendar whenever I RSVP or reply “confirmed” to an invitation, a task that used to slip through the cracks more often than I’d like to admit. Another delivers a daily news brief on trending topics and the latest headlines, which, for someone running a media company, is the difference between reacting to the news and getting ahead of it.

Here’s the funny part. Not long before that trip, I had asked my Director of Operations to find me a virtual assistant. Somewhere over the Pacific, I realized I might not need one anymore.

That realization is exactly why this conversation matters, and why it deserves more nuance than the headlines give it.

If you’re wondering how hard this is to get into, the barrier is lower than you think. Google Cloud Tech has a tutorial called AI Agents Explained: Build Your First Agent in 8 Minutes that walks through how agents reason, take action and even check their own work before trying again. In about the time it takes to scroll through your morning feed, you can understand the basics of what founders have been raving about all year. You don’t need to be a developer. You need curiosity and an afternoon.

So have AI agents wiped out the virtual assistant? My honest answer is no, but they’ve changed the job description.

The tasks that once filled a virtual assistant’s day, like sorting emails, managing calendars and pulling research, are exactly what AI agents do well. They don’t sleep, they don’t need a time zone and they don’t miss an RSVP. For small business owners and founders watching every dollar, that’s hard to ignore.

But there’s still a lot that requires a human. Picking up the phone and building a relationship. Reading the tone of a tricky email and knowing when to hold back. Making a judgment call when the right answer isn’t in the data. Representing your brand with the warmth and instinct that only a person can bring. The virtual assistants who thrive in this new era will be the ones who stop competing with AI on busywork and start leaning into the human side of the job, the side that AI still can’t replicate.

And I’ll be honest. As useful as these tools have become, there’s something scary about it, too. I gave software access to my inbox and my calendar, and it worked better than I expected. That’s exciting, but it also raises real questions. How much of our lives are we comfortable handing over? What happens when an agent makes a mistake we don’t catch? And what happens to the people whose jobs were built on the work these tools now do in seconds?

I don’t have all the answers. What I do know is that ignoring AI agents is no longer an option, especially for entrepreneurs, and especially for those of us who have always had to do more with less. The tools are here. The tutorials are free. And the people who learn to use them, without losing the human judgment that makes us valuable, are the ones who will lead what comes next.

As for me, I’m keeping my six agents. But I’m also keeping my Director of Operations’ number close. Some things still need a human touch.