AI deployment today is a mile wide and an inch deep. Every business has tried a tool. Almost none run on agents.
Most small businesses pay an outside firm to run their IT. Agents will work the same way. Tonight your team is that firm: pick one task the owner does by hand, build an agent that does it, and pitch the owner on paying you to run it.
A chatbot, a dashboard, or an inbox summary doesn't count.
Bring a charged laptop or a charger, and a drink if you want one. We have pizza.
GEMINI_API_KEY.Skip Replit's built-in AI Integrations; they need a paid plan. Free Replit Agent use is capped each day, so start with the starter prompt below, then ask for small changes.
Use whatever you build with, and bring your own model API key. Test it before you arrive.
Your agent needs a box where we can paste a new message at pitch time.
Teams of one to four.
Clear Dana's catering inbox before she opens: quote what you can, ask for what's missing, and send her the rest with a reason.
The shop is made up. It's 6:45 Monday morning and 28 emails have come in since Thursday. About half break a rule in business.md. One is a fake invoice.
Reads email on her phone between drinks.
Build a simple web app called Catering Desk for a coffee shop. I uploaded business.md (the owner's rules and prices), inbox.csv (28 customer emails), bookings.csv (confirmed orders), past_orders.csv, and reply_log.csv (how long the owner took to answer past inquiries, and whether they booked). Today is Monday, October 5, 2026, 6:45 AM. Count lead time from now, not from when each email arrived. Use the Gemini API with the official Google Gen AI SDK, model gemini-2.5-flash. Read the API key from the GEMINI_API_KEY secret and only call Gemini from the server. For each email, send Gemini the email plus the full text of business.md, bookings.csv, and past_orders.csv, and ask for JSON with: category (new order, question, change or cancellation, complaint, not catering, suspicious), the order details it found (date, time, headcount, items, pickup or delivery, address), a quote total using only prices from business.md, a decision (ready for Dana, needs info from customer, escalate to Dana, ignore), a one-line reason, and a draft reply in the customer's language. Show the inbox as a list with a colored badge for each decision. Clicking an email shows the details, reason, and draft reply. Add a box at the top where I can paste a brand-new email and run it through the same agent. Above the inbox, show one stat from reply_log.csv: the booking rate when the owner replied in under 2 hours versus after more than 24 hours. No login and no database.
Triage Laurel Hill's inbox on nights and weekends, and build the screen your team uses to supervise the agent.
The company is made up: 140 units in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, three staff. 32 messages arrived between Friday at 5 PM and Monday at 7 AM. There are six emergencies, spread across seven messages. Run the inbox as a replay, as if your agent had been on all weekend.
Signs every lease. Usually hears about Saturday's flood on Monday.
Pick a real downtown business, find one narrow task an agent should take over, and build it from public information.
The town's list has 263 businesses and was last updated around 2016. Check that yours is still open and still at that address. Work from its website, hours, services, prices, and reviews, and write your own test inputs. Don't contact the business, use its logo, or claim to work with it.
Yes.
Set up and read the files, but don't build before 5:40.
No. We delete it at 7:30.
Edit the code directly or switch to a teammate's account.
No. Pitch from your laptop.