If you’re building AI agents right now — figuring out what they can see, what they’re allowed to change, how they hand information off to each other — you’re solving a structure problem. I built a version of that structure in 2005. I just called it a website.
Not bragging. Making a point: the structure hasn’t changed. The workers have.
What building websites taught me about information architecture
In 2005, I was deep in information architecture — building systems that decided what content went where, who could touch it, what happened when it conflicted. We had a framework: levels of hierarchy, tiers of authority, one source of truth for any given fact. If a piece of content didn’t have a clear home, it didn’t belong yet. That wasn’t a limitation. It was discipline.
We called certain pages “orphans” — content that existed but had no clear relationship to the rest of the site. Orphans create confusion. They slow everything down because nobody is sure who owns them or what they’re supposed to do.
Sound like any AI workflow you’ve seen lately?
The same rules apply to agents
An AI agent needs to know: what am I reading? What am I allowed to write? Who do I hand off to, and when? What’s the source of truth if two things conflict?
Those aren’t AI questions. They’re information architecture questions. The difference is that in 2005, a confused system just showed you a broken page. Today, a confused system makes decisions — sometimes expensive ones — before anyone notices it’s lost.
The discipline matters more now, not less.
What to do before you add another agent
Map what you already have. Draw the workflow. Name the source of authority for each type of information in the system. Find your orphans — the inputs or outputs that don’t clearly belong anywhere — and sort those out before you scale.
It takes more time up front. It’s dramatically faster once you’re moving, and it avoids the painful rebuild that happens when you’ve already embedded agents into real processes.
This is the work I do. If your team is building something and the structure isn’t solid yet, reach out. I’d rather help you get the foundation right than help you untangle it later.
JCody Ventures — video, drone, networks, marketing, and the structure underneath all of it. Get in touch.
Written with AI assistance. Every idea, opinion and experience here is mine. I just thrive on strategy and execution more than eloquent wordsmithing.