AI Agents Are Here. The Future of Work: How Autonomous AI Is Reinventing Work, Software, and Organizations
Co-host by Stanford Founders' Club and Stanford Entrepreneurs
Event Venue
EVGR Building C, Room 134,726 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305
AGENDA
2:00–2:25 PM · Check-in & Networking
2:25–2:30 PM · Opening
Every Era Has One Question: Rethinking the World in the Age of AI
Sophie Ren — Founder & CEO, Learning Scientist, MatterEngine.AI
2:30–3:00 PM · Keynote
NewEyes AI and the Rise of Embodied Perception: Why the Next Frontier of AI Isn't Language, It's Sight
Laura Lin — Head of Growth & Community, Collov Labs
3:05–3:45 PM · Fireside
Rethinking Agents— 15x Growth, 40% Cancellation, and What Survives
Cheryl Cheng — Managing Partner, M12 (Microsoft's Venture Fund)
Moderated by Sophie Ren — Founder & CEO, MatterEngine.AI
3:45–4:05 PM · Keynote
The Age of the Agent：Where the value accrues
Ryan JB Taylor — Principal, Fusion Fund
4:05–4:25 PM · Keynote
How AI Agents Are Shaping a Product Designer's Workflow
Madhuri Bhavana — Senior Product Designer, Walmart
4:25–5:00 PM · Networking Reception
Quick one before tomorrow.
We're considering adding a live agent showcase to the end of the event — three minutes per builder, on stage, to show an agent you've actually built. The thing running.
Whether we run it depends on how many of you want in. If you'd like a slot, fill this out — it takes a minute:
Submit by noon tomorrow and we'll confirm slots before the doors open at 2:00 PM.
Early and half-working is welcome. Most of the interesting things in this space are.
About Event
Rethinking Agents in the Age of AI — The Next Decade of Work Starts Here
Episode 02 of “Rethinking the World in the Age of AI” — a six-part series
Every era has one question it can’t stop asking.
Ours is this:
What happens when intelligence stops being scarce?
Across six sessions, this series follows that question wherever it leads — from the search box to AI agents that work alongside us, from the infrastructure powering intelligence to robots entering the physical world, from AI accelerating scientific discovery to the question that ultimately belongs to everyone:
What should we build?
Six episodes. One story:
01 · Rethinking Search — The Next Decade of Search Starts Here
02 · Rethinking Agents — The Next Decade of Work Starts Here
03 · Rethinking Infrastructure — The Next Decade of Compute Starts Here
04 · Rethinking the Physical World — The Next Decade of Robotics Starts Here
05 · Rethinking Science — The Next Decade of Discovery Starts Here
06 · Rethinking What We Build — The Next Decade of Building Starts Here
Episode 01 asked how AI is changing the way we discover information.
Episode 02 asks what happens when AI starts doing the work.
For decades, software has waited for humans to tell it what to do.
Open the app.
Click the button.
Write the prompt.
Execute the task.
AI agents are beginning to change that relationship.
Instead of simply responding to instructions, increasingly capable AI systems can reason, plan, use tools, maintain context, coordinate across systems, and take actions toward a goal.
We are beginning to move from:
Tools → Collaborators
Tasks → Outcomes
Software → Autonomous Systems
And that shift could reshape much more than productivity.
It could change how companies are built, how teams operate, how software is designed, how organizations allocate work, and ultimately what it means to work alongside machines.
We are moving from an era where humans operate software to one where humans increasingly delegate to intelligence.
Join us at Stanford for Episode 02 of Rethinking the World in the Age of AI, as we bring together builders, researchers, founders, investors, and operators to explore the rapidly emerging world of AI agents — and what it means for the next decade of work.
Featured Speakers
Managing Partner, M12 — Microsoft’s Venture Fund
Cheryl Cheng is a Managing Partner at M12, Microsoft’s venture fund, where she invests in early-stage companies across enterprise software, artificial intelligence, healthcare, and fintech. She brings more than 16 years of experience investing in companies from early to growth stages. Before joining M12, Cheryl founded and led Vive Collective, a healthcare investment platform, and served as a General Partner at BlueRun Ventures. She holds a B.A. in Public Policy from Stanford University and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Cheryl also advises Stanford Biodesign and works closely with the Stanford d.school.
Head of Growth & Community, Collov AI
Laura Lin is the Head of Growth & Community at Collov AI, an AI-powered interior design platform transforming how consumers and businesses approach the design process. She leads growth and community initiatives, helping expand Collov AI’s presence and engagement across the AI and design ecosystem. Prior to Collov AI, Laura gained experience at Google and Meta, bringing a strong background in technology, growth, and community building. She is also an active contributor to the AI startup community, frequently participating in conversations around AI agents, consumer technology, and the practical adoption of generative AI.
Principal, Fusion Fund
Ryan JB Taylor is a Principal at Fusion Fund, where he invests in early-stage technology companies, with a focus on areas including artificial intelligence, enterprise software, healthcare, and deep tech. He brings experience from both the operating and founder sides of the startup ecosystem. Prior to joining Fusion Fund, Ryan was a manager at Justworks, where he worked closely with entrepreneurs navigating complex regulatory and healthcare environments, and he previously co-founded Bookt, a SaaS platform for talent and staffing management in the entertainment and fashion industries. Ryan holds an MBA from the University of Cambridge and a B.A. in Environmental Studies and Geospatial Information Systems from UCLA. His perspective combines hands-on company-building experience with early-stage investing, particularly around technologies reshaping how businesses operate and scale.
Senior Product Designer, Walmart
Madhuri Bhavana is a Senior Product Designer at Walmart, where she works at the intersection of experience strategy, artificial intelligence, and the future of retail. Her current work focuses on how AI can reshape retail experiences across Walmart and Sam’s Club, including AI-powered automotive and service experiences. She brings a multidisciplinary background spanning product design, UX research, and experience strategy, with previous experience at companies including Wish, Google, Nutanix, and Amazon. Across her work, Madhuri has designed consumer and enterprise products ranging from e-commerce discovery and merchandising to cloud infrastructure and assisted shopping experiences for emerging markets. She holds a Master’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction from Georgia Tech and a Bachelor of Design from IIT Guwahati. Her work centers on translating emerging technologies into intuitive, scalable experiences while connecting user needs with measurable business outcomes.
Topics We’ll Explore
From copilots to autonomous agents — when does AI stop assisting and start acting?
How reasoning, memory, planning, tool use, and multimodal capabilities are enabling increasingly capable agents
The rise of multi-agent systems and machine-to-machine collaboration
How AI agents may transform engineering, research, sales, operations, finance, customer support, and other forms of knowledge work
What happens to SaaS when users increasingly interact with agents instead of traditional interfaces?
How organizations may evolve when teams include both humans and autonomous AI workers
The emerging agent infrastructure stack — identity, memory, permissions, orchestration, observability, evaluation, and security
Trust, reliability, alignment, and human oversight in increasingly autonomous systems
How agents could change the economics of software and knowledge work
What founders should build in the agentic era
Where new opportunities may emerge as the cost of intelligence continues to fall
AI agents are still early.
Many systems remain unreliable. Long-running tasks remain difficult. Memory is imperfect. Permissions, security, evaluation, accountability, and alignment are still open problems.
But the direction is becoming increasingly clear:
AI is moving from answering questions to taking actions.
That transition could become one of the defining platform shifts of the next decade.
For founders, it raises a new question:
What businesses become possible when intelligence itself becomes a programmable resource?
For companies:
What does an organization look like when every employee can delegate work to AI agents?
For researchers:
How do we build autonomous systems that remain reliable, controllable, secure, and aligned with human intent?
And for all of us:
What becomes uniquely human when machines can increasingly reason, coordinate, and act?
Whether you’re building AI products, investing in frontier technologies, conducting research, operating a company, or simply curious about where AI is headed, this forum is an opportunity to hear from and connect with people thinking seriously about what comes next.
The next decade of work may not be defined by humans versus AI.
It may be defined by how humans and intelligent agents learn to work together.
This Is Episode 02
The story started with search.
Now intelligence leaves the search box — and starts taking action.
From here, we’ll follow it deeper into the infrastructure powering these systems, into the physical world, into scientific discovery, and ultimately into the question of what we choose to build.
This is only the beginning.
Free, and For the Community
This series is completely free and non-profit.
No tickets. No paywall. Just people who care about where AI is going, in one room.
It’s part of a larger belief we act on at Loomus.ai:
Intelligence should be accessible to everyone, everywhere.
That’s why we’ve also used AI agents to build free learning tools for communities where access to frontier AI resources is still limited — including Vietnam and beyond — curating AI research papers and organizing them into knowledge graphs so that anyone, anywhere, can follow the frontier.
We believe the future of AI should not only be discussed behind closed doors.
It should be explored by researchers, founders, students, builders, investors, and communities together.
Founders: The Stage Is Open
If you’re building a startup, come show the community what you’re building.
No sponsorship required.
No pay-to-play.
Just bring something interesting, useful, or ambitious.
Founders help founders.
Event Location
Event Venue
EVGR Building C, Room 134
726 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305
Parking
Manzanita Field Garage
742 Campus Drive
Stanford, CA 94305
The walk from the parking garage to the event venue takes approximately 5 minutes.
We recommend allowing a little extra time for parking and check-in.
Join the Loomus Volunteer Community
Behind every great event is a team of people who help bring it to life.
As Loomus continues to organize AI events, founder gatherings, community programs, conferences, and larger summits, we’re building a long-term volunteer community for people who want to get involved, contribute, and grow with us.
Whether you’re a student, recent graduate, working professional, or simply someone excited about AI, technology, and community building, we’d love to hear from you.
Prior event experience is welcome, but not required.
If you’re interested in meeting people across the AI and startup ecosystem, gaining hands-on experience, and helping us bring future Loomus events to life:
Apply to join the Loomus Volunteer Community:
Open Google Form
For any questions about volunteering, please contact:
Siena
siena@loomus.ai
Ideas or Collaborations?
We’re always open to hearing from founders, researchers, community builders, partners, and anyone who wants to contribute to the conversation.
DM Sophie REN on LinkedIn:
Rethinking Agents in the Age of AI
September 5, 2026 · Stanford
The Next Decade of Work Starts Here.
THE STORY BEHIND THESE SESSIONS
I'm Sophie Ren. I build thousands of AI agents and I love watching them. Six times a year I put a few thousand people in a room together - in Silicon Valley, in Paris, in Milan, and next May at an AI × Art festival in Sicily.
I do both for the same reason. The models have already read everything we've written down. That's the floor now, not the ceiling. What I want is what isn't in there yet - the thing nobody has tried, or has tried and never said out loud. That kind of knowledge can't be collected. It gets made, and it gets made between people, in real time, in a room. That's the part I find thrilling, and I think it's where the real value has moved.
Monet painted the same pond for thirty years. At some point it stopped being a pond and became something that had never existed — not a better painting, a new object in the world. That moment and the moment a room finally cracks a problem are the same moment: the tree of human knowledge grows a branch.
Everything a model knows came from a branch that grew before it. I don't want to watch the next one grow. I want to grow it, and I want to find the people who want to grow one too.
Bring what you're stuck on.
— Sophie