How to Build & Sell AI Agents in 2026: Ultimate Beginner’s Guide
Host Liam Ottley provides a comprehensive beginner's guide to building and monetizing AI agents in 2026, covering foundational concepts, practical tutorials, and business strategies. The episode emphasizes that AI agent skills are becoming critical for job security, with workers possessing AI expertise earning 56% more than those without, and demonstrates how to build production-ready agents using no-code platforms and AI-assisted development workflows.
Key takeaways
- • AI agents differ fundamentally from chatbots by taking actual actions (booking appointments, updating databases, sending emails) rather than just providing information.
- • The three core ingredients to focus on when building AI agents are prompting (how you instruct the agent), knowledge (external data you provide), and tools (the actions it can perform).
- • APIs are the mechanism that enables agents to interact with real-world systems through GET requests (retrieving data) and POST requests (sending/modifying data), making any online action potentially automatable.
- • Clear tool descriptions that specify what a tool does, what inputs it needs, and what it returns are essential for agents to understand when and how to use them correctly.
- • Conversational agents require human interaction (chatbots, voice calls), while automated agents run independently on schedules or triggers, unlocking 24/7 business process automation without manual input.
- • Building production AI agent systems requires self-hosting on platforms like Hostinger rather than relying on cloud-only services, enabling unlimited scaling, predictable costs, and freedom to install custom tools.
- • Real-world AI agent applications with proven ROI include lead generation and appointment setting, research and qualification agents, and voice agents for customer service, with some handling millions of calls monthly.
Recommendations (18)
"It should be connected to a Google Sheet. Should be able to take in pictures as an input of receipts and then be able to log that info in a spreadsheet for company expenses."
Liam Ottley · ▶ 32:52
"We're using the Gemini 2.5 Flash model, which is what I actually put specifically in this section here around the model preference because we needed a multimodal model out of the box"
Liam Ottley · ▶ 37:24
"based off the Google Solar API which is really the powerhouse of this build. We're going to convert their address into a latitude and longitude coordinate. We're going to pass that into the Google ..."
Liam Ottley · ▶ 1:01:37
"Being able to call custom APIs, in this case, we're calling the Google Solar API and the Google geocoding API as well"
Liam Ottley · ▶ 1:03:01
"this is the platform we're going to be using to take our n8n agent and put it on a website"
Liam Ottley · ▶ 1:03:54
"Man, if you guys aren't using Whisper Flow, I don't know what you're doing. I'm yapping to my computer all damn day at this point"
Liam Ottley · ▶ 1:47:37
"We've got our buddy Gemini 2.5 flash. Have they set it up this time? Nope. Still going to get it right. Pop that in there."
Liam Ottley · ▶ 1:59:14
Mentioned (8)
More from these creators
I Set Up a Claude Code Operating System for 6 Founders in 8 Hours
What Is an AI Operating System? (And Why Every Business Will Need One)
The Biggest Shift in Business Since the Internet Just Happened
Your Phone Can Now Run Your Entire Business. Here's How It Runs Mine.