I Stopped Building AI Tools. I'm Hiring Them
The author reflects on their journey of developing AI tools, transitioning from personal use to broader applications for coworkers and eventually to bots. Initially, the focus was on enhancing personal workflows, but this proved limiting as it still relied on the individual. The current phase involves creating AI agents that can operate independently, requiring careful consideration of their responsibilities and security measures.
- ▪The author started by building AI tools for personal use, which limited their effectiveness.
- ▪They then shifted to creating tools for coworkers, allowing non-technical users to generate reports independently.
- ▪The latest phase involves developing AI agents that can manage tasks autonomously while ensuring security and proper oversight.
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AI I Stopped Building AI Tools. I'm Hiring Them. Geoffrey Doempke 22 Apr 2026 — 4 min read This is what changed.Three months ago I was building AI tools for myself. A month ago I was building them for my coworkers. Today I’m building them for my bots.Each phase felt obvious at the time, and each one was wrong in a way I couldn’t see until I moved to the next one. This is what the progression looked like.The world I was coming out of is the one every finance and data team still operates in. A non-technical manager wants a number. A technical person writes the query, builds the chart, exports the CSV, fields the follow-up. Every question hits a gatekeeper. Every urgent ask queues behind the last urgent ask. The bottleneck isn’t the data.
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