​AI “agents” are moving from demos to real leverage, but most teams either overbuild too early or deploy something brittle that creates risk. This session is a practical guide to designing agent-driven workflows that reliably remove manual work.

​Andrew Parker (CTO, advisor, and relentless builder) has scaled engineering orgs through hyper-growth and helped drive multiple exits totaling over $819M.

​In this talk, he’ll break down what agents can (and can’t) do today, the building blocks that make them effective, and the guardrails that separate useful agents from expensive experiments. You’ll learn how to pick high-ROI workflows, define the right level of autonomy, and evolve agents safely as your team and product scale.

​You’ll walk away with:

• ​A simple framework for choosing which workflows to “agent-ify” first

• ​2–3 concrete use cases (ex: GTM research/outreach, customer support triage, internal ops/content)

• ​The biggest caveats: reliability, permissions, data exposure, and human-in-the-loop design

• ​The build spectrum: no/low-code tools vs. custom, code-driven approaches

• ​How to iterate: measure performance, reduce failure modes, and expand scope safely

​Best for: Founders and operators who want to increase execution capacity (no engineering background required), plus technical leaders who want a clearer blueprint for implementation.

​Speaker

​Andrew Parker

​Andrew Parker is a CTO, advisor, and relentless builder based in the Raleigh-Durham area. He has scaled technical organizations through hyper-growth and fueled multiple successful exits totaling over $819M. Having led engineering teams at Nearpod, Pendo, and iContact, Andrew is a veteran at growing teams from 20 to 200 and scaling platforms to billions of daily requests.

​Today, Andrew is deeply focused on the AI-first engineering revolution. He’s passionate about shipping AI into real products, building agent-driven workflows that eliminate manual work, and using modern AI engineering tools to accelerate development. He believes in the power of small, sharp teams augmented by AI – building like they’ve never built before.

​Location

​American Underground — Upstairs

​324 Blackwell Street, Durham, NC 27701

​Parking

​Free parking is available at the American Tobacco Campus North Deck, courtesy of CBC Real Estate.

• ​Map to: 305 W Pettigrew St, Durham, NC 27701

• ​Use the 2nd floor and above. (Please do not park on first floor.)

​Questions?

​This session is part of Raleigh-Durham Startup Week. Click here to learn more about the event, plus get answers to your FAQs.

​Track Supporter

​​​Thank you to Narrasoft for supporting the Strategy Track at #RDSW26!