EP 51: Building AI Agents That Actually Work in Production | Shawn Kercher, CEO @HummingAgent.ai

Sam sits down with Shawn Kercher — Co-Founder & CEO of HummingAgent.ai — to cut through the noise around AI agents. Shawn built his company on a simple but powerful observation: most AI products are just ChatGPT wrappers. HummingAgent is his answer — a full-custom software shop that builds private, in-environment AI workflows for companies that run on real data, messy CRMs, and processes that only exist in someone's head.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE

▪ Why generic AI tools fail in real business environments — and what full-custom actually means

▪ The wrapper test: if Anthropic adds this next quarter, does your product still exist?

▪ HummingAgent's Private GPT — lives in your environment, zero data sent for external training

▪ Humcrew.com — voice AI, texting, proposals, and full company command centre in one product

▪ Real client story: 44 years of PDF data, research time cut from hours to minutes

▪ Why discovery-first, paid-scope engagements beat "move fast and ship demos"

▪ The baby steps rule for agent permissions: one task, one sandbox — expand only after validation

GUEST BIO

Shawn Kercher is Co-Founder and CEO of HummingAgent.ai, based in Lone Tree, Colorado. With over a decade of engineering leadership experience, Shawn has built HummingAgent as a full-custom software shop — not a generic AI tool vendor. HummingAgent builds private, in-environment AI workflows and agents for small and mid-sized businesses, including the Private GPT product and Humcrew.com command centre. Shawn writes publicly about the risk of AI startups becoming ChatGPT wrappers — and what it actually takes to build AI systems with real domain expertise and data integration.

GUEST LINKS