Co-work Fridays @ SQCo - The Stage: Field Notes from an AI-Native Company

Title: Field Notes from an AI-Native Company — What We Got Wrong So You Don't Have To Speakers: Dima Istomin and Mariam Mamedli, PhD, co-founders of 8Hats Lab About the speakers: Dima is a serial entrepreneur with one successful exit and a Berkeley SkyDeck alum. He runs 8Hats as an agent-heavy company and writes openly about what works — and what breaks. Mariam brings 14 years in AI and data, from central-bank data science to global fintech. What this session is about: They're building 8Hats as an AI-native company, agent-heavy from end to end. Dima and Mariam will share field notes from inside it: the principles, real situations, what worked, what failed and what they got wrong. 8Hats builds the layer that governs how agent teams act and update, the metrics that score whether an agent can be trusted with real work, and the infrastructure those agents run on. Most AI labs stop here, at model capability. But Dima and Mariam's perspective also comes from 20 years in edtech. They believe the part that actually breaks is the interaction — how a person and an agent get real work done together. That's why 56% of CEOs report no cost or revenue benefit from AI in the past year (PwC) and 95% of GenAI pilots show no measurable P&L impact. For them, AI-nativity isn't automating everything. It's a symbiosis of people and agents, and it takes both the engineering and the human side to make it work. They'll also demo the in-house tool their own agents use to talk to each other and work together. Bring your laptop — you'll be able to test it live and see that agent-to-agent workflow in action. After the session, we go back to work. What is Co-working Fridays? Friday is our open co-working day. People come to work on their own projects, take breaks together, and usually stay through the afternoon. It's quiet, focused, and builder- and founder-led. You can arrive anytime from 10AM. Most people show up after lunch and settle in before 1.30pm. Bring your laptop. Grab any open seat. Stay as long as you like. At 1.30pm, we pause work briefly for a shared session called The Stage, then everyone goes back to working. This is how Fridays here work. The Stage @ 1.30pm About SQ Collective SQ Collective is a co-working space in Singapore for founders and builders working with AI. Fridays are open co-working days, with a short shared session called The Stage at 1.30pm. People come to work, learn something practical, and go back to building. Proudly supported by Singapore Global Network Supported by Singapore Global Network (SGN), a division under Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB). Join SGN to become a member of our global network of professionals and friends with Singapore at its heart. Learn more at www.singaporeglobalnetwork.gov.sg.