What If Every Employee Had Their Own AI Executive Assistant? with Nick Sonnenberg

What if your intern had a better executive assistant than your CEO? In this episode of TNW, Aydin sits down with Nick Sonnenberg—Wall Street veteran, bestselling author, and founder of Leverage—to explore how AI agents are radically transforming how work gets done. Nick demos a real AI-powered assistant that can handle email, prep meeting briefs, and even outperform human teammates. You'll hear how he structures agent orchestration, optimizes prompts as IP, and envisions a future where everyone at every level has a digital assistant.What You'll Learn:- Why every employee (not just execs) should have their own AI assistant- How AI agents can be “managed” like employees—with hierarchy and QA- The role of MCP (Model Context Protocol) in unlocking personalized, high-context automation- Why context is king in building truly useful AI workflows- Why prompt libraries should be treated like company IPTimestamps:00:00 – Imagine if interns had better EAs than execs01:00 – Nick’s background: From high-frequency trading to AI consulting02:20 – The origin of Leverage and the obsession with efficiency03:10 – Inbox Zero, RAD framework, and AI-powered email agents04:50 – What is MCP and why it matters06:20 – The CPR framework: Communicate, Plan, Resource08:30 – Orchestrator agents and agent 11:00 – QA as the new job for every role12:00 – Why execs are adopting AI faster than junior employees13:40 – The “Sniper Agent” and building executive briefs16:00 – Personalized, context-rich email drafting20:00 – Prompt optimization strategy as a business asset22:30 – Real-time battle card generation and agent chaining23:30 – Custom summaries using frameworks, not just transcripts24:00 – Behind the scenes: building and deploying agentsTools & Technologies Mentioned:Claude – Anthropic’s AI model, used here with MCP and custom agentsMCP (Model Context Protocol) – Allows secure access to private data and agent orchestration within AI platformsAsana – Project management tool integrated with agentsZapier / NADN / Crew AI – Automation platforms for building AI workflowsPerplexity – Used to scan public web/news as part of the AI brief generationCoda / Notion – Popular tools for knowledge capture, now evolving into AI-integrated workflowsHubSpot – CRM used to integrate and personalize AI-generated contentFellow – AI meeting intelligence tool for smarter call summariesNick's website: https://www.getleverage.ai/Subscribe at⁠ thisnewway.com⁠ to get the step-by-step playbooks, tools, and workflows.