Listen: Not all AI agents are created equal
From Lenny's Reads by Lenny Rachitsky
April 15, 2026 · 20 min
About this episode
Hamza Farooq and Jaya Rajwani discuss a framework for categorizing AI agent initiatives and overcoming common challenges in their development.
Hamza Farooq and Jaya Rajwani, who teach two of the most highly-rated courses on building AI agents, share a practical framework for categorizing and prioritizing your agent initiatives. Drawing on over 50 hours of research and work with Fortune 500 companies, including Jack in the Box, Tripadvisor, and The Home Depot, they explain why most teams get stuck when building agents—and how a three-category taxonomy transforms a confusing backlog into a clear, sequenced roadmap. --- In this episode, you'll learn: • Why prioritizing AI agent initiatives is so hard, and why familiar planning tools like impact-effort matrices break down • The three architectural categories every agent falls into • How to choose the right platform for each category • Success metrics and ROI frameworks tailored to each architectural type • How to quickly course-correct when you’ve picked the wrong architecture --- References • Agent Engineering Bootcamp: https://maven.com/hamza-farooq/agent-engineering-bootcamp • Agentic AI for PMs: https://maven.com/ • AutoGen: https://microsoft.github.io/autogen/ • Claude Code: https://claude.ai/code • CrewAI: https://crewai.com • Google ADK…
People in this episode
Host: Lenny Rachitsky
Guests: Hamza Farooq, Jaya Rajwani
Topics covered
- AI agents
- prioritization
- frameworks
- architecture
- success metrics
- course correction
Keywords
- AI agents
- prioritization
- taxonomy
- success metrics
- architecture
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Jack in the Box, Tripadvisor, The Home Depot, Maven, Microsoft, Google, Gumloop, Lindy, Make.com
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