The chatbot era is winding down — and what's replacing it doesn't wait to be asked. In this episode of The Wired Garage with Pops, Pops and co-host Steele sit down with Matt Coatney, a technology leader operating at the intersection of enterprise AI and legal industry practice. Matt breaks down the real difference between a chatbot and an autonomous AI agent, shares what multi-agent systems actually look like in production today (not the sales pitch version), and offers a clear-eyed take on governance, accountability, and responsible adoption. From his own experiments building with Claude Code at home, to running AI workshops inside a major law firm, to advising on where to move fast and where to pump the brakes — this conversation is grounded, practical, and a little bit urgent. The Internet of Agents isn't a concept on a roadmap. It's being wired up right now, one workflow at a time.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Agents act. Chatbots answer. A chatbot waits for your question. An agent has knowledge, skills, guardrails, and can be proactive — more like a coworker than an advisor.
- Multi-agent systems are real, but still maturing. Most enterprise deployments today are the same capability wearing different hats. The leap to agents filling entire job roles — not just tasks — is where the real shift happens.
- Move fast on stable infrastructure — not on everything. Target high-repetition, high-cost, low-risk tasks first. In regulated environments (law, health, finance), some things in the value stream should never be automated, regardless of capability.
- When an agent makes a mistake, accountability still sits with you. If you didn't set up the right guardrails, that's on the human who deployed the system — the same way a manager owns the outcomes of the people they supervise.
- Governance for agents isn't new — it's just scaling fast. Test harnesses, simulation, failure mode analysis, escalation paths. The questions are the same ones any good manager asks. The challenge is applying them at speed and at scale.
- Skill atrophy and over-reliance are real risks. After ninety-nine good AI outputs, you stop checking the hundredth. That's fine for low-stakes work — dangerous for skills that still matter when the tool goes down.
- "AI powered" is a marketing claim, not a fact. Get the technologists in the room. The gap between vendors who've embraced AI in a mature way and those who've just applied the label is already showing up in product quality and stability.


KEYWORDS
AI agents, autonomous agents, multi-agent systems, internet of agents, AI governance, AI accountability, enterprise AI, AI adoption, AI in legal, IT leadership, AI vs chatbot, agentic AI, AI guardrails, AI risk, AI washing, ServiceNow AI, Claude Code, MCP protocol, AI productivity, future of IT, IT service desk AI, AI skill atrophy, AI in enterprise, responsible AI, tech leadership, future of work, AI tools, wired garage


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Jeremy Duncan is a cloud platform solution architect with 20+ years of experience, Fortune 500 engagements, and a reputation that precedes him — green glowing shoes and all. But behind the accolades is a story built on grit. Raised by a single mom working three jobs, Jeremy grew up watching hustle from a bar stool at a Nashville watering hole and turned that into fuel. In this episode, Jeremy takes us from a maraschino-cherry childhood to a 10-year run as a reserve police officer — all while building a career at the top of the ServiceNow ecosystem.

We get into his work connecting Ukrainian war refugees to American sponsors through the Goldman Sachs-backed welcome.us platform (later the subject of a Tribeca film), his unsanctioned mentorship cohort turning nurses and veterans into tech professionals, and his honest, grounded take on AI, workforce transformation, and how leaders should navigate the noise. He closes with two words that say it all: Choose joy.

✅ KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Grit is inherited — Jeremy's drive traces directly to watching his mom hustle across three jobs. The foundation of his work ethic wasn't a college campus, it was a bar stool.
• Intangibles over credentials — When mentoring, Jeremy doesn't look for degrees or certifications. He looks for people who are already the "go-to" for computers, who lean in naturally, who want to sit behind a screen.
• Technology with a human center — His most meaningful career moment wasn't a Fortune 500 deployment. It was connecting Ukrainian refugees to American families, one platform, one family at a time.
• Imposter syndrome is universal — Even the most decorated architects feel it. The answer isn't to ignore the change — it's to ride it.
• AI will change IT, not destroy it — Marketing is ahead of engineering. The pendulum will correct. The skill of the 21st century is prompt engineering, not just tool mastery.
• Don't let leaders swing the pendulum too far — The C-suite mistake Jeremy sees repeatedly: wholesale pivots instead of bite-sized, thoughtful AI adoption that starts with the soul-crushing work nobody wants anyway.
• Faith and family are the real grounding agents — When the stakes are highest, Jeremy doesn't look at the spreadsheet. He looks up.

🔑 KEYWORDS / TAGS
ServiceNow, Cloud Architecture, AI and the Future of Work, Mentorship, Workforce Transformation, Human-Centered Design, Prompt Engineering, Imposter Syndrome, Tech Leadership, Faith and Career, Origin Story, Reserve Police Officer, Ukrainian Refugees, welcome.us, Grit and Resilience, Choose Joy

CHAPTERS

• Jeremy Duncan's Origin Story
• Mentorship and Paying It Forward
• Meaningful Projects and Humanitarian Impact
• The Future of Technology and AI
• The Economic Impact of AI on Employment
• Trust and Security in Technology
• Navigating Change in Leadership
• Personal Grounding in a Tech-Driven World
• The Human Element in Technology

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