Colin Wiel, a seasoned tech entrepreneur with a knack for anticipating industry disruption, has his sights set on the next big thing: autonomous AI agents. As Co-founder and CEO of Qurrent, Wiel is leading the charge in empowering businesses to embrace this groundbreaking technology. His vision? A future where AI agents work alongside human employees, driving unprecedented levels of efficiency and productivity.
"We actually have the knowledge of humanity in a neural network with the ability to reason," says Wiel. "This is the time for me to leverage all my experience starting companies, and all my knowledge and passion for AI, to do something truly impactful."
A Career Shaped by AI Innovation
Wiel's journey is marked by a consistent ability to identify and capitalize on emerging technological trends. From the early days of personal computers, working for Boeing's AI steering committee, to the rise of cloud computing, he's been at the forefront of AI and technology paradigm shifts for decades.
His career began at Boeing, where he tackled a critical challenge that pushed the boundaries of AI applications. "A pretty significant problem that the organization was struggling with was that airplanes would sometimes go off the end of an icy runway, which of course is a safety hazard." Wiel's solution—a revolutionary AI-enhanced braking system—improved braking efficiency from 92% to 97%, reducing stopping distances by 5%. The success of this innovation earned him a coveted spot on Boeing's AI Steering Committee.
"I was 10 years younger than the next youngest person on the committee," Wiel says. "That was my whole world for my first four years out of college—just being deeply immersed in AI. I was 22 when I started... This experience kickstarted my admiration for AI and all that it can do for us," he continues.
In 2009, Wiel co-founded Waypoint Homes "to scale single-family rental ownership. Nobody had ever owned more than a thousand single-family rentals before this. My co-founder and I started this company together—he had real estate experience and I was the tech guy. We built an AI and data platform for analyzing and figuring out the best homes to buy that would perform well as long-term rental properties," Wiel shares.
"We built an AI and big-data platform for analyzing and figuring out the best homes to buy that would perform well as long-term rental properties. An important part of it was an AI model that could predict how much a given house would rent for with a high degree of accuracy."
By using this creative strategy, Waypoint Homes was able to buy more than 17,000 properties, building a billion-dollar portfolio that led to its public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. For Wiel, this marked another milestone in his journey of integrating AI into transformative business models.
Fast forward to 2023, Wiel's company Qurrent introduces groundbreaking technology. With autonomous AI agents, he is committed to laying the groundwork for a time when AI is not merely a tool but rather a vital component of the workforce.
Qurrent's Groundbreaking Technology
Wiel believes AI agents represent a paradigm shift unlike any other, surpassing even the transitions to PCs, the internet, and cloud computing. AI agents have the potential to reshape the economic landscape. By automating knowledge work, they can unlock trillions of dollars in economic value, enabling businesses to operate with leaner teams, reduced overhead, and increased output. This translates to higher profitability and a stronger competitive edge.
The integration of AI agents will also fundamentally change how businesses operate. Organizational structures will evolve, and new management practices will emerge to oversee and collaborate with AI agents.
"The way that AI will transform every industry is not through copilots and personal assistants, but through autonomous AI agents," Wiel asserts. "Think of these as AI employees with their own roles and responsibilities, working alongside human employees." These AI employees can communicate in natural language with humans, other AI agents, and customers, seamlessly integrating into the organization. They can access and process information from various sources, providing valuable insights and automating tasks across departments. They can work 24/7/365, scaling their efforts to meet fluctuating demands.
This new era of AI agents necessitates a reimagining of traditional management structures. The current corporate hierarchy, with its performance reviews and KPIs, is designed for human employees. AI agents don't require motivation or time off, and their performance can be continuously monitored and optimized in real time. This shift calls for a new framework of management that leverages data-driven insights and automated feedback loops.
Human managers will transition from task oversight to strategic direction-setting, guiding AI agents to align their autonomous decision-making with broader organizational goals. Workflows will become more dynamic, with AI agents adapting processes on the fly, discovering new efficiencies, and optimizing business functions.
Qurrent: Building the AI-Powered Future
Qurrent, co-founded by Wiel and CTO August Rosedale, is at the forefront of this revolution. Their platform, The Qurrent OS, enables them to build, deploy, and manage custom AI agents for their customers.
"Our perspective is that the era of AI agents is fundamentally different than the era of traditional SaaS which preceded it," explains Wiel. "The processes of designing, deploying, and managing these systems need to be reinvented from the ground up. And that's what we're doing at Qurrent."
With the Qurrent OS, businesses can tailor AI agent behavior to meet their specific needs. It equips AI agents with the ability to understand and respond to their environment, enabling them to make informed decisions and collaborate effectively with humans. Built-in guardrails and security protocols ensure that AI agents operate within defined parameters. The Qurrent OS is designed to scale with Qurrent's customers, allowing them to add new AI agents and expand their capabilities easily.
Wiel's message is clear: the future of work is AI-powered, and businesses that embrace this change will reap the rewards. Qurrent is committed to empowering businesses to navigate this exciting new era, providing the technology and support needed to "move at the speed of AI."
