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AI Agents vs Skills vs Automations: What Every Bench Scientist Needs to Know
Description
AI agents, skills, and automations. You keep hearing these terms, but nobody has clearly explained what they mean for someone actually working in biotech. In this episode, Carina sits down with Stu Angus, founder of Scriptome.AI and an AI consultant who works with small biotech companies every day, to break down exactly what each of these tools is, when to use one over another, and why getting this wrong leads to a lot of wasted time.
Stu has 15 years of experience in biotech R&D and business development. He now helps small biotechs bridge the AI adoption gap that has opened up between them and big pharma, and he built Pavlov GPS, a free searchable database of 500+ AI tools for biotech R&D. If you have felt pressure to add AI to your workflow but had no idea where to start, this episode is the clearest, most practical answer you will find.
What you will learn in this episode:
- The real difference between an AI skill, an agent, and an automation, and when to use each
- Why small biotechs are getting left behind on AI adoption and what that means for your career
- How to tell if your workflow is a good candidate for an agent or if a simple skill would do the job
- The “AI Slop cannon” problem and how to avoid automating your way into a mess
- How a team of five agents can wake you up every morning with tailored job applications already drafted
- Why Whisper Flow is the most underrated AI tool for bench scientists right now
- How Stu built Pavlov GPS starting from a spreadsheet, and how you can do the same with your own data
Stu also weighs in on Copilot vs Claude, shares a spicy take on the most overhyped AI tool in biotech today, and tells us what he thinks every biotech professional will need to know how to do within five years.
- Meet your AI team | Notion
- Wispr Flow
- 2026 Biotech AI Report | Benchling
- The Fast and the Curious — AI Upskilling for Biotech Scientists
- Pavlov-GPS | AI Tools Navigator for Biotech R&D
- Scriptome.AI
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00:00 What the AI adoption gap in biotech actually means for your career
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