When Do I Get My Networked Agentic Organization (NAO)?

I Want a Team of AI Agents—Even If They Haven’t Arrived Yet

It took me three hours of work to lovingly draft, write, edit, refine, and publish this article. I cut through the hype and doom to bring you real insights on Agentic Organizations and the Future of Work. Subscribe to my Substack and don’t miss a single post!

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A Networked Agentic Organization is one where workflows between people are orchestrated by decentralized, outcome-oriented AI agents—not by centralized, task-oriented business processes.

I want a team of digital assistants.

I want a public speaking assistant that can navigate the chaotic mess of apps, platforms, and workflows used by event organizers. My assistant will handle email, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Sessionize, Eventbrite, ConfTool, Dropbox, Google Docs, and the five hundred bizarre homebrew systems I encounter every year. I want to tell my Speaking Agent, “Send the organizers my keynote titles, abstracts, media kit, and travel schedule—and let me know if they have any questions.”

I want a travel assistant that can wrangle the endless variety of apps and websites I use for planning trips. It will be fully aligned with my very specific travel preferences and offer curated travel options, complete with pros, cons, and inevitable trade-offs. I want my Travel Agent to monitor itinerary changes and optimize loyalty points across SkyTeam, OneWorld, and Star Alliance.

I want a teammate assistant that can keep track of everything scattered across the dozens of tools I use with other freelancers. Honestly, I waste way too much time just trying to remember where things are. I want to say, “Find me all the ideas and conversations from last month about agentic organizations,” and my Teammate Agent will retrieve everything across Google Docs, Slack, Notion, Miro, Canva, Roam, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude—every digital breadcrumb I left behind.

And yes, I want a personal assistant to manage all of these professional assistants. Its name will be Alfred.

Right now, it feels like I have to wait. The Networked Agentic Organization I want to build around myself seems possible in theory—but not quite ready in practice. Yet. It’s only a matter of time.

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Note: After my previous post on Agentic Networked Organizations (ANO), several readers kindly pointed out that “ano” already has a rather... anatomical meaning in Spanish and Italian.

This is hilarious, considering I did ask Perplexity if the term had prior uses worldwide. It gave me plenty of meanings and acronyms—but not this one. Maybe it censored itself?

The irony is too rich to ignore, so I’m leaving that post unchanged. I was petrified for ten seconds, and then I just had a good laugh. Just a reminder: don’t trust AI too much. And never take yourself too seriously.

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Usually, when we see a visual of a Multi-Agent System (MAS), it’s a hierarchy: multiple specialist agents coordinated by a central meta-agent. Such a system could be layered on top of today’s tools and processes. My AI agents could operate across my digital ecosystem—and if they ever went on strike (not unlikely if they were French), I could still do the work manually.

But if those agents started replacing full workflows—if I became fully dependent on them, the way we all rely on the Internet—then my Multi-Agent System would evolve into an Agentic Organization. Its distinguishing characteristic would be the system’s agentic behavior, not just the tools beneath it.

The real shift comes when my agents begin collaborating across traditional boundaries with other people’s agents. For example, my agents could coordinate with those of my book editors, designers, and marketers. That’s when we’d become an emergent agentic team—a Networked Agentic Organization (NAO).

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No more calling them ANOs. I’d like my Spanish and Italian friends to keep a straight face.

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So... when do I get my NAO?

Maybe we can build them together?

p.s. This time, I triple-checked with three AIs. Zed (ChatGPT) gave the most thorough response. NAO seems safe. 👇

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I want to know if “NAO” is already used as an acronym or has unintended meanings in other languages. I’d prefer to avoid international embarrassment when speaking to a global audience.

Ah, the noble quest to coin a term without stepping into a linguistic bear trap. Let’s break down “NAO” and scan for danger zones.

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🧠 Common Uses of “NAO”

Acronyms Abound:

• National Audit Office (UK)

• North Atlantic Oscillation (climate science)

• New Account Opening (finance)

• National Astronomical Observatory (Japan)

• Natural Atomic Orbital (chemistry)

• Naval Aviation Observer (military)

• New Age Outlaws (wrestling)

• Nao (humanoid robot)

So unless you want people to think you’re a government agency, a climate phenomenon, or a tag-team wrestler—proceed thoughtfully.

Linguistic Oddities:

• In Portuguese, não means “no.” Your acronym might read as a rejection in Brazil or Portugal.

• In Spanish, nao is an archaic word for a 15th-century ship. (Not quite the bleeding edge.)

• In Japanese, “Nao” is a common unisex name. You might accidentally name your idea after someone’s cousin.

Geographical Curiosities:

• NAO is the airport code for Nanchong Gaoping Airport in China.

• It also stands for the Nenets Autonomous Okrug in Russia.

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TL;DR: NAO is punchy, but it’s got baggage. Tread carefully or your shiny new idea might get mistaken for a weather pattern or a robot from 2006.