On this page
Learn the four levels of AI employees (Contractor, Trained, Connected and Autonomous) and what each level adds.
Key takeaways
- An AI employee is an AI you've trained to do one job, the same way every time.
- The four levels: AI Contractor → Trained (it gets a brain) → Connected (it gets a connector) → Autonomous (it gets a schedule).
- No level is better than another. Pick the level that fits the job.
- When you can build all four, you're an AI Architect.
Do this now: Try the four "Which level is it?" questions in the full notes.
Class Notes
🤔 What's an AI employee?
An AI employee is an AI you've trained to do one job.
It does that job the same way every time, and you never have to ask twice.
Some people call it an AI agent. It's the same thing.
- It starts as a prompt. A prompt is the words you type to tell AI what to do.
- Then you save it as a skill. A skill is a saved prompt, so you never have to explain the job again.
No level is better than another. Pick the level that fits the job.
🪜 The four levels
It's the same AI employee the whole way. Each level gives it one new power. See all four levels in one picture
💬 Level 1: AI Contractor
A saved skill you use in a normal chat.
Our example: Callan types "couples massage with Nicole, next Tuesday at noon." The skill turns it into a calendar invite you can click.
🧠 Level 2: Trained AI Employee
You give it a brain. That means facts about your business, like who your clients are, your prices, or your past work.
Our example: our website checker already knows the rules for ads in the US. It spots ad claims that could get a client in trouble.
🔌 Level 3: Connected AI Employee
You give it a connector. A connector is like a key that lets it open another app, like Notion, Slack, or your email.
Our example: our Summer Events Finder looks up local events and adds each one to a client's Notion page.
⏰ Level 4: Autonomous AI Employee
You give it a schedule, so it does the job on its own.
Our example: every hour, one of ours saves the team's new Granola meeting notes into the right Google Drive folder. Nobody has to remember.
🔁 One job, all four levels
Here's how one job, a meeting summary, moves up the levels.
💬 Level 1: AI Contractor
You paste in your meeting notes, and your saved skill writes a short summary.
🧠 Level 2: Trained AI Employee
You give it your team's files, so it knows who is working on what.
🔌 Level 3: Connected AI Employee
It puts each summary into a spreadsheet for you.
⏰ Level 4: Autonomous AI Employee
A2A member Sarah Jay records calls with an app called Plaud.
Every night, an AI employee finds the new recordings on its own. It adds each one to a spreadsheet with a summary, a topic, and who was talking.
🎯 Your turn
Which level is each one?
- A skill that fixes your spelling and grammar in a normal chat.
- A meal planner that picks meals from your grandma's 100 favorite recipes.
- A skill that writes a client update and posts it in Slack.
- A weekly report that gets made every Monday morning, before you wake up.
Check your answers
- AI Contractor.
- Trained AI Employee (the recipes are its brain).
- Connected AI Employee (it opens Slack).
- Autonomous AI Employee (it runs on a schedule).
✅ Before you close this
🌱 New to this?
Start small. Just learn the four names today. We'll build one together in class.
Stuck? Copy this page into Claude and say: "I'm new to this. Walk me through it one step at a time."
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