Agents of Change

Appstream Studio

A series about real modernization stories, practical AI, and the builders behind enterprise change.

Episodes

  1. May 26

    Episode 8: Jonathan Sexton - AI Agents, Bitcoin, and What We Actually Own

    What does an AI model pick when you ask it to hold money? On this episode of Agents of Change, Justin Tannenbaum hosts Jonathan Sexton — brand strategist, songwriter, husband, father, youth basketball coach, and Bitcoin-focused operator who writes for Unchained. The conversation anchors on a Bitcoin Policy Institute study that tested 36 frontier AI models — Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, xAI, DeepSeek, Minimax — across 9,072 monetary scenarios with neutral framing. Zero picked fiat as their top preference. Stablecoins led for payments. For long-term store of value, 79 percent picked Bitcoin. The study becomes the spine of a wider operator conversation on what AI agents will do when they start making payments on our behalf. Key takeaways: - Software's new bottleneck is imagination, not language. With agentic tooling, the "I don't know how to code" excuse is mostly retired. Hire for taste and clarity in 2026. - Measuring AI teams on token spend is the same incentive trap as paying engineers by lines of code. Companies that measure activity get activity. Measure outcomes instead. - The agentic AI payment stack is two layers, not one. Stablecoins for the payments layer (speed). Bitcoin for long-term store of value (uninflatable supply). - AI personhood will likely follow the corporate-personhood legal precedent. Corporations got full legal personhood with very little built-in responsibility for the people or environment around them. The same shape could happen with AI agents. - Curiosity precedes agency. Most hiring frameworks screen for the wrong variable. - Wall Street showed up at Bitcoin 2026 — managing directors and VPs, not marketing associates. The cultural narrative on Bitcoin still lags the trade-show floor by 12-18 months. About the guest: Jonathan Sexton started as a musician and songwriter, pivoted into technology and brand strategy, and now works on Bitcoin-focused projects including writing for Unchained. About the host: Justin Tannenbaum is the CEO of AppStream Studio, where his team builds production AI agents for companies that need AI in production, not on a slide deck. Subscribe to Agents of Change for operator-grade conversations on AI, modernization, and the work that actually ships.

    45 min

About

A series about real modernization stories, practical AI, and the builders behind enterprise change.