The Lucent Perspective
In The Lucent Perspective, host Rebecca Hastings interviews executives and leaders from the tech sector to learn about their successes, most valuable lessons learned, challenges, solutions and insights. Rebecca is an executive headhunter who has built leadership teams and helped technology companies rapidly scale. If you're looking to learn about startup and scale-up technology companies and hear from some of the most entrepreneurial and innovative leaders, join Rebecca Hastings and guests on The Lucent Perspective.
The Lucent Perspective
How Agent AI Scaled to 1.4M Users: Building for Non-Tech Builders with Andrei Opirsan
In this episode of The Lucent Perspective, Rebecca Hastings is joined by Andrei Opirsan, Head of Engineering at Agent AI—a platform redefining no-code AI. With over 15 years’ experience leading technical innovation at startups and tech giants like Wayfair and HubSpot, Andrei shares the engineering, architectural, and leadership choices that powered Agent AI’s explosive growth to 1.4 million users in under a year.
They discuss how Agent AI empowers non-technical users to build intelligent agents, the challenges of orchestrating AI at scale, and why small teams often outperform larger ones. If you're navigating AI adoption, scaling a SaaS platform, or managing high-performance tech teams, this episode is packed with actionable insights.
Topics Covered
- Agent AI’s user growth: From zero to 1.4M in less than a year
- Key technical and product decisions that enabled fast scaling
- Designing platforms for both no-code and technical users
- Modular system architecture and continuous testing at scale
- Human-in-the-loop design and agent orchestration challenges
- How small teams build faster and stronger cultures
- Hiring for ambiguity, versatility, and ownership
- Strategic decisions behind building vs. integrating AI tools
Episode Highlights:
00:00 – Intro to Andrei Opirsan & Agent AI
02:00 – The 3 pillars behind Agent AI’s growth
06:00 – Building for no-code and technical users
09:00 – When to build AI agents from scratch vs. integrate
11:00 – Agent orchestration and managing scale
15:00 – Testing, architecture reviews, and moving fast
21:00 – Small teams vs. large: Agility and ownership
24:30 – Traits to hire for in a startup environment
28:00 – Leadership shift: From doing to enabling
33:00 – How they manage distributed teams & alignment
36:30 – Metrics that matter beyond vanity user numbers
37:50 – Trust, AI in hiring, and identity verification
About Andrei
Andrei Opirsan is Head of Engineering at Agent AI and a co-founder of OneScreen.AI. With a background in scaling engineering teams and platforms at companies like Wayfair, Liberty Mutual, and HubSpot, he blends technical depth with product strategy. At Agent AI, he’s leading the charge in making AI agent-building accessible, scalable, and impactful—especially for non-technical users.
Connect with Andrei on LinkedIn
Rebecca Hastings, Founder and Director at The Lucent Group
Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hastingsrebecca/
Would you like to be a guest? Book a time to speak with Rebecca: https://calendly.com/rebeccahastings/discovery-call
The Lucent Group Ltd website - https://www.thelucentgroup.co.uk/
The Lucent Perspective website - https://thelucentperspective.com/
Rebecca has extensive talent and executive search experience supporting digital and technology businesses through complex changes and fast-paced scale-up periods. She works with businesses advising on C-level, technical, sales and commercial appointments, workforce planning, strategic talent management, recruitment processes and associated technology and employer brand development.