tech
February 18, 2026
AI Agents Are Taking America by Storm
Americans are living in parallel AI universes. For much of the country, AI has come to mean ChatGPT, Google’s AI overviews, and the slop that now clogs social-media feeds. Meanwhile, tech hobbyists are becoming radicalized by bots that can work for hours on end, collapsing months of work into weeks, or weeks into an afternoon.
TL;DR
- Agentic AI tools, such as Anthropic's Claude Code and OpenAI's Codex, can perform complex computer tasks autonomously, collapsing weeks of work into hours.
- These tools are particularly transformative in software engineering, with estimates suggesting AI could write up to 95% of code industry-wide by the end of the decade.
- While increasingly accessible, agentic tools can still be intimidating for non-technical users and carry risks, as demonstrated by a bot accidentally deleting files.
- Concerns are rising that similar advances could cannibalize various forms of knowledge work, with some predicting automation of most white-collar tasks within 18 months.
- The true capabilities and potential long-term impact of agentic AI are still being understood, with significant challenges remaining in ensuring safety and reliability for widespread use.
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