Don’t use AI.Walk with it.

Don’t stop at prompts or answers. Walk with an agent until an idea becomes a real thing.

A manifesto by Chinonso Anyaehie Begin the walk

The belief

Agentic AI is more than a tool for finishing tasks. It can pursue a goal across many steps—but its highest purpose is not autonomous output. It is a partner for expanding human imagination and turning it into products.

Chinonso Anyaehie standing beside a humanoid robot

Human intent. Agentic momentum. A shared walk from possibility to product.

Chinonso AnyaehieAuthor of the WalkBuild Manifesto

The agentic turn

From prompting to shared agency.

A chatbot waits for an answer-sized request. An agent can hold a goal, plan, use tools, inspect its work, and try again. WalkBuild makes that capacity creative: the agent carries momentum while the human carries meaning.

The human brings

Direction

Intent, imagination, taste, values, and accountability for the outcome.

The walk creates

Alignment

Conversation, critique, feedback, and course correction while the work is alive.

The agent brings

Momentum

Planning, tools, context, execution, and the ability to revise across many steps.

What we believe

06 PRINCIPLES

Think with, not through.

Bring the agent into the unfinished thought. Let it investigate, propose, and challenge—then let the exchange change what you see.

Walk, don’t query.

Do not disappear after the prompt. Begin with direction, not certainty. Stay in the loop as the agent plans and acts; let the problem become clearer as you move.

Creativity is the real advantage.

Agentic capability is becoming common. Imagination is not. The decisive skill is no longer knowing how to operate AI; it is imagining what is worth asking an agent to make possible.

Thinking must land.

A good conversation is not the finish line. Let the agent research, organize, prototype, and revise until the thought has a form another person can use.

Everyone can build now.

Agents lower the distance between intention and execution by carrying work across tools and steps. Expertise still matters, but technical gatekeeping no longer gets the final word. The default posture is builder.

The human steers.

The agent may decide how to pursue a bounded goal. The human decides why it matters, what good looks like, what is safe, and when the work is ready. Accountability stays human.

Biggest limitation isn’t the tech, it’s imagination and creativity.

— Peter Steinberger (@steipete), September 25, 2026

The practice

The WalkBuild loop

Agentic, not automatic: give the agent room to act inside each phase without handing over the destination. You can circle back at any point.

01

Frame

Set the goal, stakes, boundaries, audience, and what the agent may do.

02

Walk

Let the agent investigate and propose. Follow surprises, argue, reframe, and redirect.

03

Build

Give the agent tools to turn the strongest idea into a concrete, usable artifact.

04

Ship

Review, test, and approve the work. Put it in someone’s hands, learn, and begin again.

For the classroom

Teach the walk, not the prompt.

Students should learn to direct, challenge, and audit an agent—and leave with evidence of thought, creative risk, and a useful thing.

First introduced in Commerce BUSAI 3AI3

Foundations of LLMs and GenAI in Business · Fall 2026 · instructor: Prof. Shane Saunderson

  1. 01
    Start with a problem worth caring about.
  2. 02
    Define the agent’s role, tools, and boundaries.
  3. 03
    Show how your thinking changed during the walk.
  4. 04
    Make creative choices the agent could not choose for you.
  5. 05
    Submit the artifact—and defend every consequential decision as your own.

Student showcase

Build something. Put it in the world.

Use the WalkBuild strategy to turn an idea into a working product. Student work created through this process will be featured on this site—so others can see not only what you made, but how your thinking moved along the way.

Start with the loop Built by students · featured here
  1. 01
    Choose a real problem.

    Start with something useful, meaningful, or genuinely worth exploring.

  2. 02
    Document the walk.

    Show where you challenged the agent, changed direction, and made the key decisions.

  3. 03
    Ship the product.

    Bring your finished work to class. Every completed WalkBuild product will be showcased here.

The declaration

We will not measure our future by how much work we hand to agents. We will measure it by the boldness of what we imagine and the usefulness of what we build together.

Think together. Make it real. FRAME → WALK → BUILD → SHIP →