#512 The Autonomous Business: How AI Agents Redefine Leadership and Growth – Insights from Philippe Theunissen and Niels Brabandt
The Autonomous Business: How AI Agents Redefine Leadership and Growth – Insights from Philippe Theunissen and Niels Brabandt
Artificial Intelligence is no longer a future concept. It is a present-day strategic imperative. In a compelling interview with Niels Brabandt, AI expert Philippe Theunissen outlines how agentic AI is fundamentally reshaping business models, decision-making, and competitive dynamics.
At the centre of the discussion is the concept of the autonomous business. As Philippe Theunissen explains, this is not a business without people. It is a business where human intelligence is amplified by AI agents that execute tasks at scale, speed, and precision. Leaders are no longer required to manage every operational detail. Instead, they can focus on strategic thinking, creativity, and opportunity identification.
The implications for decision-makers are profound. Traditional organisations rely on layers of processes, approvals, and human execution. Autonomous businesses, by contrast, leverage AI agents to handle everything from software development to sales processes and operational workflows. This creates a structural advantage that is both immediate and difficult to replicate.
Philippe Theunissen highlights a critical window of opportunity. Organisations that act now can achieve disproportionate growth. Smaller and more agile businesses, in particular, are positioned to outperform larger competitors that are slowed down by internal complexity. However, this advantage is temporary. As AI adoption becomes standard, the gap will narrow.
One of the most compelling insights is the transformation of execution. Tasks that previously required months of development and significant financial investment can now be completed in a fraction of the time. AI agents can write code, generate sales proposals, manage customer interactions, and automate administrative processes with remarkable efficiency.
Yet, this transformation is not without risk. Theunissen emphasises the importance of disciplined implementation. Organisations must start small, isolate use cases, and avoid exposing sensitive data. Poorly managed implementations can lead to unnecessary costs or security vulnerabilities.
Another critical factor is cost management. AI systems operate on token-based models, and inefficient configurations can quickly escalate expenses. Leaders must understand how to optimise AI interactions, minimise unnecessary processing, and design systems that are both effective and efficient.
For Niels Brabandt, the leadership dimension is clear. The rise of the autonomous business demands a new leadership mindset. Leaders must embrace continuous learning, technological literacy, and a willingness to experiment. Those who resist change risk falling behind in an increasingly AI-driven economy.
The conversation ultimately reinforces a central message: AI is not replacing leadership. It is redefining it. The leaders who succeed will be those who understand how to integrate human judgement with machine execution.
The autonomous business is not a distant vision. It is an emerging reality. And as Philippe Theunissen and Niels Brabandt make clear, the time to act is now.
Niels Brabandt
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More on this topic in this week's videocast and podcast with Niels Brabandt: Videocast / Apple Podcasts / Spotify
For the videocast’s and podcast’s transcript, read below this article.
Is excellent leadership important to you?
Let's have a chat: NB@NB-Networks.com
Contact: Niels Brabandt on LinkedIn
Website: www.NB-Networks.biz
Podcast and Videocast Transcript
Niels Brabandt
AI is everywhere. The question is, is your business able to handle it, and is your business able to use it properly? We have an expert on the matter with us here today. Hello and welcome, Philip Toynisson.
Philippe Theunissen
Hello, hello. Thank you, Niels. Great to have me on the on the podcast.
Niels Brabandt
Thank you very much for taking the time. So you wrote the book, which is called The Autonomous Business. We see it right here, how AI agents and open core are creating a new era of business growth. I saw in your CV you were with AI way before it became famous. You did the whole science, but you started with AI in the year 2000, so roughly 25 years ago. Is that correct?
Philippe Theunissen
Yeah, yeah, that's correct. Indeed we were just I still remember it. We were just past the dot-com bubble. So after 2000, it exploded. But then I already decided, well, I need to be in IT. And I was thinking, what's what's the next what's the next boom cycle? That will be AI. So indeed, I did a master in, in, on artificial intelligence back then. Very interesting. Still very early days because we were.
Niels Brabandt
Extremely early days. Absolutely. Yeah.
Philippe Theunissen
We were studying all the techniques. Yeah.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah, absolutely. So what was your main motivation to write this book right now?
Philippe Theunissen
Yeah, the main motivation is that the subtitle says it, right? I mean, it's it's it is a new era of business growth which is enabling. So for me, the main reason is to tell entrepreneurs small business owners about this opportunity that exists right now. So AI is pretty powerful. And by using this agent this making it agentic with the open cloud, for example, you give it hands and eyes and, and really the tools to execute for you. So now there's a window where an entrepreneur or small business, if it implements AI with, with agentic tools, I mean, you can grow your business incredibly. And I think we have this, this golden window right now.
Philippe Theunissen
Small big businesses are moving slowly, right? They need committees, and they need to decide when to implement this. As an entrepreneur, you can really grab this and implement it in your business and, and enable yourself for, for for for a few years of extreme growth. And I think it is right now that you need to, to, to do this, because I think in, say, in two years, everybody will simply implement AI with the agentic tools. And then it's, it's, it's normal. I mean, if you don't have it, you're behind. But now this era is, is, is there for you.
Philippe Theunissen
So, I mean, and that was for me the main reason. In December came open cloud out. Agentic AI was really powerful. I said, well, the world needs to know this because it's, it's it's right now. Entrepreneurs, small business owners, we need to act right now.
Niels Brabandt
Absolutely. So you, you, you would say this golden window, roughly 1 to 2 years we have right now, not, not any longer?
Philippe Theunissen
Well, well, maybe, maybe that's, that's, that's, well, maybe a bit longer. But I think now the difference between between businesses that don't use it and if you start using AI agentic AI, the, the, the difference suddenly in performance is massive. So, so give it two years. But, but I would say don't wait because it's yeah, the, the, the, the advantage will be shrinking the longer.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah, absolutely. So what, in your opinion, is an autonomous business, and how does it differ from the traditional business that most people know who are listening today?
Philippe Theunissen
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the autonomous business, the, I mean, the, the, the business would be then running and executing on your goals without having a lot of people extra on it. So the autonomous business is, of course, not a business that is without people. But then it's, it's with AI-enabled AI-enabled people that use agents, I mean, AI-enabled agents that, that do the things for you.
Philippe Theunissen
So suddenly we can, I mean, humans can high level think strategically, high level be creative, really get the ideas, what should we do, and then use your, your team of agents to really execute on, on, on these things. So, so people would be thinking strategically, have the ideas, your agents will execute, and autonomous will be done. This is the autonomous part.
Philippe Theunissen
If you set up your agents correctly, it can really execute a lot of things from, from, from, from software development to sales to marketing to finance to, to, to help desk to, to research. So, so that's the autonomous part. Set up your agents so that they can execute. And then the, I mean, the human team can really think strategically, high level to go faster and and, and grab more opportunities.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah, absolutely. I saw that besides the master's in Maastricht in AI, you also have a master's in management from Solvay because many people will now wonder, okay okay, I want to use AI. However, where exactly do you see the biggest opportunities for entrepreneurs and small teams, especially at the moment?
Philippe Theunissen
Well well, a few, a few areas areas. I would say the IT that's, that's for many entrepreneurs, IT is always this, this break on, on their creativity, on, on the speed. And the, say, the last six months to three months, the, the, the quality of AI programming of the programming done by, by AI tools is really incredibly good. So suddenly I mean, I'm, I'm a software entrepreneur, so I always had six, seven, eight people, at least in my team, IT people, to execute on ideas, build new products. You got these slow cycles of building a prototype, test it version one, version two. And then, I mean, it's, it's easily six months. It's easily 100,000, 200,000 euro or US, which you would pay at least to get something there. And now with, with, with agentic AI, it can code incredibly fast and, and at the, at the, at the in a great quality. So, so for a lot of entrepreneurs, so many ideas are in these entrepreneurs' heads with, with your AI agentic AI is coding, you will be much quicker. So I would say use for sure agentic AI to code for you. That, that whole part is there. Also for testing.
Philippe Theunissen
And I think if you look at, at so that's, that's one big era, I would say, area. The second thing is that operational support. I mean, you always get the, the, the email the triage, the responding, that that's clear. For example, what I like a lot and what my clients also like a lot is, is the, the meeting summarizer. So whenever you have a meeting your bot listens with you. Yeah, it takes a transcript of the, of the, of the meeting. It puts it in the CRM system. It emails all the the summaries to, to, to the participants. It plans the next meeting. It, it plans the tasks in the in the task in the, in the project management tool and follows up. So, so this, this, this simple thing that, that is costing people a lot of of companies, a lot of time, that's fully automated.
Philippe Theunissen
And another one, sales. I mean, sales quotes come in, boom. I mean, the company docs are, I mean, are in the back of the head of all the agents. Quotes are generated extremely quickly. I mean, a lead comes in, it's answered. This whole sales cycle that can be so much optimized. And this, this is just fun. I mean normally people don't like to do all this admin stuff. I mean, creating I mean, all this admin stuff is just slowing people down. And, and all for these processes that slow you down set an set up an agent that, that does it for you. So, so yeah, I call this AI-enabled people. I mean, AI people, they execute the ideas and execution. The, the, the actual execution is the, is the, is the agent. And yeah, well, these are, for example, some, some examples where, where I see clients or in, in my business it, it helps a lot.
Niels Brabandt
Brilliant. Absolutely. And of course, one thing I have to talk about, because some people at the moment, when I prepared for this episode, some people told me, look, I really want to implement it. However, I know when I do something wrong, it can go really wrong. So what, in your opinion, and with your expertise you have, what are the common mistakes that people make when they try to automate with agentic AI? What are the common errors they make?
Philippe Theunissen
Yeah, yeah. Well, common errors is that that they install the, the this technology, open cloud, on their main computers that have all the information there. So what you do, install the open cloud agent on a separate computer that has that has not all your data on it. So because you give open cloud the, the, the permission to just run your computer. Yeah. But I mean, if nothing, I mean, and that, that's fine, that, that, that's still there. But if on that computer is not your sensitive data, then at least nothing can be leaked to them. I mean, to the internet.
Philippe Theunissen
So, so start with a separate computer just for your bots. And one and I would say very careful be very careful with installing skills. I mean, skills is what, what you give to your agent to do extra things. And yeah, because it's open source, everybody can create skills. Unfortunately, a lot of bad code is in these skills that you install the skill. I mean, it generates a PDF, for example, but it also scans your complete PC and sends away. So very careful. Be very careful with installing skills.
Philippe Theunissen
And I would even say don't install, install skills at the start. And okay, the thing your, your bot can code skills themselves. So I mean, if you install your bot, your first bot, you say, for example, do something nonsensitive, like a meeting summary summarizer, then the bot says to you, well, I need this and this and this because I, I want to create PDFs or I want to do that. You can simply say create that functionality yourselves and it codes that, that whole thing. So you don't rely on skills from, from, from, yeah, external skills. Just let the bot program their own skills.
Philippe Theunissen
So be, be very pragmatic in that sense. Just start small and, and, and, and get there. And I would say if you do like this, there's not much risk of leaking data and sensitive sensitive documents. And the other thing that I see if you just install and, and go wild, you will burn a lot of tokens. So it will cost you a lot. Yeah. Because, I mean, if your agent loops or, I mean, what, what's very fun is to let two agents talk to each other. I mean, it's beautiful to watch, but it, it, it can cost you so much money in, in such a short time.
Philippe Theunissen
So just be careful. Set up start with small tasks and, and then extend. For example, in, I mean, also in the book, I say, well, your first 48 hours, just select a few, a few tasks that are small, really isolated. That is not, don't create, don't try to create multi-agent systems. Just one bot does one small task and see how it works. See how many tokens you burn. If you think it's too expensive, then indeed you need to, you need to improve that.
Philippe Theunissen
And what's here, the, the crucial thing is that you need to make sure your bot minimizes context. That means, I mean, right now we're talking for ten minutes. We started talking about, for example my AI study, for example. It's not relevant anymore, but you need to tell your bot, forget about this, this study. Okay. Yes. And, and this is then pruning and compacting. And then, and then you keep your context small. And if you do that, then, then also your tokens your token burn is not too high because, and, and if you would speak for one hour and you don't tell your bot, forget all the other stuff, well, then suddenly one reply costs you 2 to $2, $3. And, and, and, and then two and four, and then you burn through your API fees immediately. And then you think, oh, wow, that's too expensive. I stop. And, and so you need to be careful with that.
Niels Brabandt
Absolutely. So we probably can move from what now we have the golden window of actually getting the whole thing on board. And maybe afterwards we will have a golden window for optimizing AI to just burn the least amount of tokens. That, that, that is basically a whole science for itself, isn't it?
Philippe Theunissen
True, true, true, true, true. And, and I think it's because in the end, multi-agent multi-agent setup is really beautiful. Because, I mean, then, then, for example if I look to my marketing flow, I get Lulu is my marketing. I mean, I, I give my bots names. So Lulu is then the marketing agent. She does social media posting, but sometimes she needs to make landing pages. And PT is, for example one of my programming bots.
Philippe Theunissen
So Lulu and PT, they talk to each other. And Max is, for example, a financial bot. So he, he checks budgets. He, he makes sure that that payments can be done. So these three bots, they need to communicate with each other. And, and this is the optimizing. So you need to be careful when exactly does one bot talk to the other bot? What can these bots say? And, and how to make sure that indeed the they don't burn money. Because, I mean, if, if, if one bot would say, I don't get it, and the other one explains, I don't get it. Yeah. And then, then you burn €10 or $10 for just a stupid thing.
Philippe Theunissen
So this optimization indeed is, is, but I think it will, it will be quicker because you realize you implement these bots, you see value, you try to do as much as possible, and then suddenly you start burning because the communication, the overhead is difficult. So there the optimization will be quicker. And I have to say, if you look at how quickly the AI models now evolve and also open cloud evolves, every week you got updates. Open cloud makes it better to set up, makes it cheaper to set up. Yeah, OpenAI and, and, and Anthropic. And well, Anthropic is now banned. It banned the open cloud.
Philippe Theunissen
But, but you see now all the providers work on making agentic AI better because they also, they also realized, I mean, we have the brains, the AI providers, but we missed, we missed the, the, the tools to really execute. And this is, it is the agentic part. So the, the move towards optimizing this goes so quickly. And, and, and that is, that is something, well, really amazing to see every week feels like a year. I mean, say five years ago, progress was very slow, and now it goes so quickly. Also, China is, is is, is, is innovating so quickly.
Philippe Theunissen
So it's, it's I think in, in, in three months' time, our conversations say, well, optimization, maybe that's done because it's, it's built in that, that, that, that it, it works automatically much better. So, and that's also why, why, why it's so important to get started because now you feel it, you, well, you learn it, you implement it, and your, your own learning curve is also it goes so steep. And then you see it what you do this week it will be, will be slow next week. And, and then you learned and then you improve. So it's this winning opportunity is, is really right now. We need to grab it. And because I think that the, the, the the difference it will make is, is really immense. And if you start right now, you, you, you have a, you have the competitive advantage you actually want to have. Yeah. Yeah.
Philippe Theunissen
Excellent. Perfect. So of course, when now people sit here and think, hmm, I think Philippe could be really helpful for our business, how can they get in touch when they want to have you as a keynote speaker, trainer, coach, mentor, whatever else? How can they get in touch? Well, thank you for the question. Yeah, I think they can they can reach me through me via LinkedIn or just contact me through my business. It's, it's open cloud intelligence.com. There they can also read a lot about open cloud agentic AI how to, how to get started, how to set it up. So yeah. Or I think also through your network, through the podcast they can reach out and, and they can find me. So so yeah it's, it's happy to help.
Philippe Theunissen
But I would say indeed the first step is really just get a separate machine, a separate computer, go to us, open cloud, install it and, and, and, and feel it. I mean, it's, it sounds maybe scary, but if you just do it on a separate laptop with no, with no sensitive data, not much can go wrong. And then you feel anything. And that's a beautiful thing because you speak with your bot through WhatsApp or through Signal or through, through Telegram. It feels like as if you're talking to a human. If it is set up, it's amazing. And then you just tell it, improve yourself and it improves itself. So it's, it's, it's, it's almost magic. So I would say get started.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah, I think these are the perfect final words. The autonomous business, how AI agents and open cloud are creating a new era of business world. Amazing book. Amazing experts. So Philippe, at the end of this podcast, there's only one thing left for me to say. Thank you very much for your time.
Philippe Theunissen
Well, Neil, thanks for the time. And then all of yeah, all the best.