The Shift From Tools To Agents

A Brief Intro…

Welcome to The Kurilec Minute: my weekly letter for the most useful things happening in AI. I’m Thomas. For the last 2 years, I’ve been deep in AI every day; studying it, building with it, and using it inside real businesses. Right now, I’m running 2 AI companies, building products, and testing workflows in the real world, not just talking about them.

Each week, I’ll send a short note covering:

• what actually matters in AI right now
• how I’m personally using new tools and models
• a few high-value tools, prompts, or workflows you can steal immediately

Nothing in here is fluff. If I include it, it’s because I either use it myself or think it’s genuinely worth your attention. Please email me if you wanna work together or have any questions ([email protected]).

So without further ado… Let’s get into it!

AI News This Week…

The biggest shift this week: AI agents are going mainstream.

On April 22, OpenAI, Google, and Salesforce all pushed further into agent workflows. That matters because we’re moving from AI that helps you think to AI that actually does work on your behalf, browsing, filling forms, researching, and handling multi-step workflows.

Google also had a strong Gemini drop, with better project organization, deeper personal context, and a native macOS app. The bigger theme there is simple: the race is no longer just about better models, it’s about better workflow integration.

OpenAI’s model retirements were another reminder that if you build on AI APIs, your stack needs active maintenance. Old prompts, old workflows, and old assumptions expire faster than most people think.

And finally, open-weight models keep getting better and cheaper. That won’t replace frontier models at the top end yet, but it does mean builders now have more options for lower-cost automation and background tasks.

So what should you actually use?

• Claude Opus 4.6 — deep reasoning, planning, writing
• GPT-5.4 — best all-arounder
• Gemini 3.1 Pro — best for Google integration
• Perplexity — best for research

Big takeaway: the future is not one model, it’s using the right model for the right job.

GPT 5.5 and Opus 4.7 dropped. Now this is big news becasue many are saying gpt 5,5 is better than Opus, but heres what I am seeing and how I am using them… I use Opus 4.7 as my orchestrator and planer. Nothing can write plans and reason as well as opus 4.7, so thats what I use it for. But in terms of coding, image gen, and general research GPT 5.5 is my go-to.

Free Sauce!

One of the highest leverage workflows I use. Set up a project in Claude or ChatGPT, copy-paste this exact prompt in the instructions, then use it to generate a detailed build plan you can hand off to Claude Code or Codex to work overnight. Why it matters: AI stops being a chatbot and starts acting like an operator. https://drive.google.com/file/d/18sYGUuDAcEd_oA3La8X0SYVnWMJoQ3YF/view?usp=sharing

Answer Engine Optimization is becoming one of the most important skills in AI. As more people get answers directly from AI tools, your content needs to be structured so it can actually be surfaced, understood, and cited. Use this exact guide to set it up for your business or to learn how to sell it to others. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c3BrUmStWhvxV6IggXapv1DQ8fvKMQfO/view?usp=sharing

If you’re serious about AI, you need a place to store prompts, ideas, workflows, and notes. Obsidian is still one of the best free tools for building a real second brain. It will save you tokens and give you AI tool more context so it always can serve you best. Why it matters: Better organization = better thinking. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UWhQlIlR1JZqLKNcajBVTXMtaKayzqIQ/view?usp=drive_link

Most people don’t need 500 prompts. They need 10 great ones. Here’s a small library of my best prompts for writing, research, planning, summarizing, and decision-making. Why it matters: Reusable prompts compound fast. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YOE22TcD9guRR3NewOSCj4o5TPalQKUB/view?usp=drive_link

Once a week, ask AI: What did I do this week that should be automated, improved, or removed? Why it matters: This is how you turn AI from a tool into a system. Simple, but effective!

AI is moving insanely fast, but the people who win won’t be the ones who try every new tool. They’ll be the ones who learn how to use the right tools well, build real systems, and create leverage over time. That’s the goal of this newsletter; to help you cut through the noise and focus on what’s actually useful. Feel free to email me with any questions or follow my socials for more info! See you next week!

-Thomas