A steady drumbeat of media reports has warned about AI wiping out entry-level jobs and even eliminating some middle-management positions, but the prospect of AI taking over the job of CEO, or at least parts of some executive functions, could be a reality sooner than we think.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has revealed that he has deployed an internal, self-hosted AI model that functions as a centralized “oracle,” ingesting every Slack message and Google document to create a unified, aggregated repository of the company’s communications.
Speaking with “All-In” co-host Jason Calacanis during an interview in Davos, Armstrong explained how the system has evolved from a basic productivity aid into a strategic advisor widely adopted across teams, including legal and finance.
“One of the big pushes we made in the last year was um we got our own internal hosted AI model that was connected to all of our data sources, right?” Armstrong said. “It’s like every Slack message, every Google doc, every Salesforce data, Confluence. So now this is all linked up in one like the data is all aggregated and you can ask these agents. Every team is using it.“
“It’s like the oracle of Coinbase,” Calacanis interrupted.
“Yeah,” the Coinbase leader replied.
The “Old Way” of running a company is dead. 💀
Brian Armstrong just revealed how he’s using AI agents to run @Coinbase, and it’s a glimpse into the future of leadership.
1. Real-Time Monitoring 👁️
No more waiting for “quarterly reviews.” Brian uses AI agents to synthesize… pic.twitter.com/fp5TTD16rZ— Jungle Inc Crypto News (@jungleincxrp) January 24, 2026
Armstrong also explained how he has shifted from using AI for routine applications – such as drafting memos – to more introspective queries that surface potential blind spots. “I’ve started to ask it really – it’s not just like prompting it, ‘Hey, can you write this kind of memo for me or something,’” Armstrong told Calacanis. “I’m asking these AI agents now, um, as CEO, like, ‘What should I be aware of in the company that I might not be aware of?’ And it’ll tell me, ‘Did you know that, like, there’s actually disagreement on this team about the strategy?’ And I was like, ‘Actually, I didn’t know that,’ cuz it can read every Slack message in every Google Doc.”
Armstrong credited Coinbase board member and Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke with introducing the concept of “reverse prompting” to him. “He said this is like reverse prompting. Instead of telling the AI agent what you want to do, you ask it what you should be thinking more about, right?” Armstrong said.
“It’s a mentor, it’s like a coach,” Calacanis interjected.
“Yeah. Like, what could make me a better CEO?” Armstrong replied. “And it’s like, well, I looked at all how you spent your time in the last quarter. Here’s how you said that you wanted to spend it, but you actually spent like 32% of your time on this instead of 20%. I’ve asked it other questions like, what’s the thing that I changed my mind on the most over the last year? Things like that.”
“It’ll prompt you with information you should be thinking about instead of the other way around,” he added.
In the future, you don’t prompt AI–AI prompts you.
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