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Aakash Gupta argues most people in 2026 still use AI as ephemeral chat sessions…

2026-05-09 · 21:27 UTC ·@aakashgupta ·2 min read

Brief

Aakash Gupta argues most people in 2026 still use AI as ephemeral chat sessions, but productivity jumps when the same models are organized as persistent, memory-enabled agents acting as an 'AI Chief of Staff.' He cites a DoorDash director's weekend build, claims GPT-3 users in 2026 can out-produce 2023 GPT-5 users, and promotes a May 14 AI Skills conf (5,000+ registered).

Source evidence

Most people in 2026 still use AI the way they used it in 2023.

The 2023 workflow: open a chat window, type one question, copy the answer, close the window. The session ends. The AI forgets everything.

The 2026 workflow looks like a persistent staff member. The agent knows your projects, your priorities, your deadlines, the names of every stakeholder, the open threads from last week, and your style preferences. It wakes up before you do, briefs you on overnight email, drafts replies, pulls the data, and prioritizes your day before you've finished coffee.

Same model in both workflows. The difference is structure. Memory files, project repos, standing instructions, daily brief loops, and a handful of skill files for the work you do over and over.

A DoorDash science director built one. Forbes 30 Under 30. He calls it an AI Chief of Staff. Setup takes a weekend. Compounding kicks in immediately because every week the agent gets better at knowing what you actually need.

A 2026 user running GPT-3 will out-produce a 2023 user running GPT-5.

He's giving the live build at next week's AI Skills conf: conf.cosprints.ai/?32

Aakash Gupta (@aakashgupta)

20+ AI leaders from @GoogleDeepMind, @awscloud, @Meta, @DoorDash, and @Spotify are running live sessions on May 14. Free, on Zoom.

The talks I'd pay for if they weren't free:

  • Putting AI to work for creative marketing. Sandro Gelashvili (Google).
  • How non-developers are shipping production apps in 2026. Martin Slaney (Bolt).
  • Building your AI Chief of Staff from an empty Claude Code setup. Dima Zborovsky (DoorDash).
  • The 2026 AI tool stack for founders. Paige Bailey (DeepMind), Jafar Najafov (Nextool), Emanuel Cinca (Stacked Marketer).
  • Why 2026 is the year AI leaves the screen. Frantz Lohier (AWS).
  • How to build agentic products with Claude Code, no coding required. Pawel Huryn (Product Compass).
  • How to become irreplaceable with AI in 2026. Ksenia Se (Turing Post), Dhrupad Sethi (Meta), Robin Sutara (Databricks).
  • How corporations actually decide on AI tools. David Smooke (HackerNoon), Tanya Roosta (AMD), Andrey Skripkin (Meta).
  • Context engineering and agentic memory. Robert Youssef (God of Prompt).
  • Why AI harness, not models, will define 2026 winners. David Campbell (Scale AI).
  • Which AI use cases are actually delivering ROI. Ankur Khare (SAP), Merlyn Shelley (Packt), Stuart Clark (Spotify).
  • Stop Trying Not To Get Fired. Alexandra Tomashevskaya (Remote).

I'm running one too: How to use Claude to land your dream job.

5,000+ professionals registered. 5+ hours. 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET / 4 PM London.

Register: conf.cosprints.ai?32

— https://nitter.net/aakashgupta/status/2051401992338297333#m