Agency Is The Real Superpower In The Age Of AI

In the age of AI, only agency matters.

Everything else - raw intelligence, knowledge, even clever prompts - is becoming a commodity.

Recently three posts on X clicked this into focus for me:

• Andrej Karpathy: talking about "Agency > Intelligence" and reflecting that he had this intuitively wrong for decades, because culture worships IQ and "smartness" instead of action.
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• Hardik Pandya: a one word post - "Agency."
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• Garry Tan: "Intelligence is on tap now so agency is even more important."
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Three people, three variations of the same idea.

If AI is the new electricity, then agency is the new superpower.

What is "agency" really?

Forget textbook definitions. When I say agency, I mean:

The ability to decide, move, and make things happen in the real world.

Some signs of agency:

• You do not wait for perfect information - you move with good enough information.
• You do not stop at "that would be cool" - you send the message, book the call, ship the draft.
• You do not only optimize your own output - you pull other people into motion.

Plenty of people are smart. Very few people actually start things, push through resistance, and close the loop.

Intelligence used to be scarce. Now it is on tap.

For a long time, intelligence felt like the ultimate edge.

Top schools, IQ, tricky puzzle solving - that was the whole game.

Now:

• You can ask an LLM to summarise a research paper.
• You can generate boilerplate code, marketing copy, or SQL.
• You can get a decent answer to most knowledge questions in seconds.

So if everyone has near unlimited access to knowledge and "thinking help", what is scarce?

• Not answers.
• Not ideas.
• Not plans.

What is scarce is someone who will actually run the play.

Agency > Intelligence in the AI age

We have culturally over rewarded "being smart" and under rewarded "being agentic".

You can see the difference:

• The high IQ person who endlessly refines the plan.
• The slightly less "brilliant" person who sends the cold emails, assembles the team, and ships the product.

Ten years ago, the first person might have looked more impressive. Today, with AI assisting both of them, the second person wins by a huge margin.

Because:

• AI can resize intelligence.
• AI cannot make you get over fear, embarrassment, or inertia.

Tools are stronger than ever. The bottleneck is: do you use them to move reality or just to think prettier thoughts?

What agency looks like in practical life

A few concrete patterns I see over and over:

1. Agency in learning

Low agency learning:

• Watching tutorials on "how to learn AI".
• Saving threads and blog posts "for later".
• Endlessly researching "best roadmap".

High agency learning:

• Picking one project and shipping a v1.
• Asking someone for feedback and actually acting on it.
• Applying for something slightly above your level and figuring it out on the way.

AI can turbocharge both types, but only the second type compounds.

2. Agency in career

Low agency:

• Waiting for your manager to define your growth plan.
• Complaining about lack of opportunities.
• Secretly hoping someone will "notice your potential".

High agency:

• Owning a problem end to end, without being asked.
• Proactively setting up 1:1s and asking "what would it take for me to reach the next level".
• Creating opportunities for others, not just for yourself.

AI can help you write the email or outline the plan. It cannot force you to send it or stay consistent for six months.

3. Agency in building

Low agency:

• Talking about "someday I will build a product".
• Collecting domain names.
• Tweaking the logo for the 50th time.

High agency:

• Shipping an ugly v0 to three real users.
• Charging one person money and seeing if they pay.
• Iterating in public, even if it feels uncomfortable.

AI is fantastic at clearing friction in building - coding, design drafts, content. The limiting factor is no longer skills. It is your willingness to be seen failing in public.

Agency also means moving others

I like this phrasing: the ability to move others.

In the AI age, this might be the deepest form of leverage:

• Convincing a designer to jam with you on a Saturday.
• Aligning a small team around a crazy but precise goal.
• Getting early users to give you brutally honest feedback.
• Rallying a community around a mission.

AI can imitate style and tone, but trust and energy still come from humans.

Someone with agency:

• Makes clear asks.
• Follows up.
• Keeps promises.
• Builds reputation over time.

That combination creates a gravity field around you. People are more willing to say "yes" when you ask for help, intros, feedback, time, or money.

How to become more agentic

This is the part that matters, because "agency" can sound abstract. Here are some small, concrete ways to level it up.

1. Reduce the gap between idea and action

Make this a personal rule:

If something takes less than 2 minutes, do it now.

Examples:

• Thought of someone you should text - send it.
• New blog idea - open the file and write two sentences.
• Potential user - send a short DM.

You are training your brain that ideas lead to movement, not to overthinking.

2. Decide in public, not only in private

Examples:

• Announce you are shipping something by a specific date.
• Tell a friend your goal and ask them to check on you.
• Share progress weekly, even when it feels small.

Public commitment increases your follow through. AI can help you make nice dashboards. The real magic is you showing up every time.

3. Ask for things more often

Agency is tightly linked to willingness to ask.

• Ask for feedback.
• Ask for intros.
• Ask for opportunities.

Most people are surprisingly happy to help someone who is clearly moving and doing the work.

4. Ship ugly, then iterate

Perfectionism is anti agency.

Try a "low ceremony" shipping habit:

• Write short posts instead of waiting for your "perfect essay".
• Build tiny utilities instead of a full platform.
• Run a 5 person cohort before dreaming about a 500 person one.

Every shipped thing gives you more data than any polished plan.

AI is the multiplier. Agency is the input.

The world we are heading into looks something like this:

• AI as an always available co founder that can think, write, code, design.
• Infinite advice threads, frameworks, courses, templates.
• Leverage that used to require a company now available to one person.

In that world:

• Being "smart" is table stakes.
• Knowing "what to do" is cheap.
• The edge is: do you move.

So if you are trying to pick which skill to obsess over this decade, here is my vote:

• Use AI to raise your floor of intelligence.
• Use agency to raise your ceiling of impact.

Tools will keep getting better. The question is simple:

When the world hands you infinite intelligence on tap, what do you do with it?