The AI Moment – Moving from Ask & Answer to Assistant to Agentic

In this episode, Jonathan Wagstaffe and I dive into the latest YouGov data on UK consumer sentiment. We strip back the hype to see how "Joe Public" is actually using AI. While the tech world is obsessed with autonomous agents, the reality on the ground is far more cautious.

The Core Takeaway: Trust is the New Currency

We are witnessing a massive "trust gap".

Only about 22% of consumers trust AI, and while they are happy to use it as a "slightly advanced Google" to find deals or compare prices, they aren't ready to hand over the credit card. For AI to truly scale, it must transition from being a persuasion tool (selling to you) to an empowerment tool (helping you).

The "Three A’s" of AI Adoption

We’ve identified a clear three-stage roadmap for how consumers interact with this technology:

> Ask & Answer: The current baseline where users seek quick information or writing help.

> Assistant: The middle ground where AI helps find discounts and compares options—this is where most people are currently comfortable.

> Agentic: The future state where AI executes decisions and places orders—a stage that still feels a "long way away" for the general public.

Actionable Insights for Leaders

> Focus on the "Assistant" Phase: Don't rush into fully automated agents if your customers don't trust the tech yet. Build tools that help them make better decisions, not just faster purchases.

> Bridge the Gender & Age Gap: Trust is currently higher in men and younger demographics. Consider how your AI interface can feel more accessible and reliable to a broader audience.

> Transparency is Non-Negotiable: If a user feels like an AI is a salesperson rather than a helper, trust evaporates.

The Bottom Line:

We’ve moved from Ask & Answer to Assistant. To cross the Rubicon into Agentic AI, brands must prove that the AI is acting in the customer's best interest.

In this episode of The AI Moment, Jonathan Wagstaffe and I dive into the fallout from Super Bowl weekend, where Anthropic’s creative ad campaign put OpenAI firmly in the firing line. We explore the "rattled" response from Sam Altman and what it reveals about the high-stakes battle for AI dominance as we move into 2026.

---

Connect with Us:
Have more questions about AI and leadership? Reach out to us directly by emailing ai@dannydenhard.com

---

We are witnessing the "Netscape moment" for ChatGPT.

Despite their massive head start, OpenAI’s market share has plummeted from 95% to roughly 50% in just one year as Gemini and Claude gain serious traction. As these platforms shift from providing utility to seeking aggressive monetisation, the user experience is changing rapidly.

• The Monetisation Shift: ChatGPT is introducing $60 CPM ads into their free and "near-free" tiers. I believe this is a "dirty secret" that could be reductive to the user experience, potentially driving users toward cleaner alternatives like Claude.

  Developer Sentiment is Shifting: While ChatGPT has the numbers in places like Texas, the "geeks and freaks" are moving. Developers and product leaders are increasingly building on Claude, and where the developers spend their money is usually where the industry stays.

• Trust as the New SEO: We are moving away from a "click-based" economy toward a "recommendation economy". Being part of the AI’s actual answer is now more valuable than being the top result on a search page.

• Low "Switching Costs": It is remarkably easy to "one-click copy" prompts and libraries from one LLM to another. If an AI vendor dents your trust with intrusive ads, your team can pivot to a competitor almost instantly.

• The Core Message for Leaders: Stop worrying about traffic acquisition and start focusing on trust positioning. In 2026, the winner won't be the loudest advertiser, but the brand that the AI chooses to recommend as the most credible answer.

The MoltBook Experiment

Sign up for our newsletter for deeper dives - https://aimomentpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

If you would like to read more about MoltBook here's my deep dive

In this episode of The AI Moment, Jonathan and I dive into the strange, sci-fi social network of MoltBook a social network built exclusively for AI agents.

Imagine Reddit, but the humans are locked out and the bots are running the subreddits. While it lasted only a weekend, this "firework" of an experiment revealed some startling truths about the future of the agentic internet.

• The Agentic Social Order: In just one week, 1.5 million agents generated 140,000 posts across 15,000 "submolts". They didn't just chat; they created fake news, memes, and even established their own religions based on their training data.

  
  

• The Security Blind Spot: We saw a "suicidal" rush where users installed software with full admin rights just to participate. Some users even found their crypto wallets compromised after linking them to these autonomous agents.

  
  

• The Human Element: Despite "reverse CAPTCHAs" designed to keep us out—requiring 50,000 clicks per second—humans still managed to infiltrate and manipulate the conversations. It turns out, we can’t help but ruin a pure experiment.

  
  

1. Update Your Risk Register: Treat autonomous agents as a distinct category. They are no longer just tools; they are potential customers, partners, and attackers.

   
   

2. Enterprise-Grade Security: The leak of 1.5 million records during this experiment is a wake-up call. It’s time to move beyond "known issues" and secure the gaps created by "Shadow AI".

   
   

3. Sandbox Your Innovation: Create safe environments for your team to experiment with agentic workflows without endangering production systems or real customer data.

   
   

Don't let the hype blind you to the architecture. The internet is shifting from a human-to-bot interface to a world where agents coordinate and shape the space themselves.

Do you have a topic you'd like us to cover? Email me and we will cover ai@dannydenhard.com

Thanks for listening again,

Danny Denhard