AI agents vs. being your own agent — and why it matters now more than ever

There’s never been a more powerful time to outsource your life.

AI agents (software systems that act on your behalf) can now write your emails, summarize your meetings, manage your calendar, design your workouts, and, if you let them, decide what’s worth your attention. They promise agency. They deliver automation. And they’re only getting better.

But here’s the question no one’s asking:

If a machine is doing your thinking, choosing, and expressing for you…

What happens to the part of you that actually grows?

I’m not anti-AI; more on that later.

We’re pro authentic agency.

We believe in a future where men can use advanced tools without losing themselves. Where somatic intelligence, emotional fluency, and relational truth are not relics, but roots.

We need help in developing our innate ability to metabolize emotions through the body, in relationships, and through awareness. This happens best with what I’ve written about before, Antifragility, where we achieve growth through challenge, experience, and connection.

AI Agents: Outsourced Agency

AI agents act on your behalf. They optimize tasks, filter data, and execute commands.

In the right hands, they’re revolutionary. But they can’t feel.

They don’t metabolize grief, navigate conflict, or build trust over time. They don’t know the difference between a surface “yes” and a body-based “truth.”

When you over-delegate your decision-making, you risk losing your inner compass. You become efficient… but unanchored. Productive… but performative.

Becoming Your Own Agent

The MELD Method teaches men how to return to the source of their power:

• Your body
• Your connection to self and others
• Your relational truth
• Your felt sense of what matters

We don’t give you scripts. We help you hear yourself so you can speak from a place of presence.

We don’t tell you how to lead. We help you inhabit your life in a way that leads naturally.

A Side-by-Side Comparison

AI agents can handle your output.

Functional men’s work strengthens your authorship.

Where This Is Headed

As technology accelerates, the most valuable skill won’t be knowing more—it will be knowing yourself better. I will utilize your somatic, emotional, and relational wisdom more effectively, enabling you to create and achieve in ways that no AI tool can.

The future belongs to those who can:

• Use tools without being used
• Speak truth without losing connection
• Lead from the inside out

That’s our work. It begins by becoming your own agent.

Our version of AI

Authentic Intelligence

As we continue to explore what it means to live and lead from a centered place in a hyper-automated world, we will share the tools we discover.

One such tool we are in the process of launching is the MELD Solo Coach (MSC), a melding of AI and our work. Rather than providing quick, top-down solutions, MSC is your guide to deepening your experience, allowing you to discover your own answers buried in what you had to disconnect from. 

We are using the alpha version of MSC. Once we believe it’s ready, we will launch a beta at a reduced rate, allowing you to provide feedback and helping us co-create a powerful tool that can assist more men.