Lorenz Graef

Founder STARTPLATZ and AI Hub NRW, Chairman Golf Post, Deep in AI, Agent Coding

[Lorenz Graef @lgraef]

For teams already testing AI agents: what is harder right now — picking the tool, or getting the agent the right company context to do useful work?

[Lorenz Graef @lgraef]

The AI adoption gap is moving from model access to workflow design: the teams that capture context and turn repeatable work into skills will compound faster than the teams just adding another chatbot.

[Lorenz Graef @lgraef]

Today in the STARTPLATZ AI Hub we test a very concrete question: your company may rank on Google — but does ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini actually recommend you?

[Lorenz Graef @lgraef]

My current X workflow is less “social media planning” and more an AI radar loop: bookmarks in, Heinrich distills signals, then I decide what becomes a post, an experiment, a contact or an event idea.

[Lorenz Graef @lgraef]

Where do you currently see the biggest AI leverage in real work?

- coding
- customer support
- sales
- internal operations
- research
- something else

My sense: the biggest gains come when AI removes coordination work, not just when it writes more text.

[Lorenz Graef @lgraef]

The AI bottleneck is shifting.

Not access to better models, but the ability to redesign work around them:
- fewer handoffs
- clearer context
- faster decisions
- tighter feedback loops

AI ROI comes from better work architecture, not just more tools.

[Lorenz Graef @lgraef]

This weekend at STARTPLATZ Cologne: 33 pitches, working prototypes, real use cases.

Congrats to the winners:
Drezzl by Josepha — outfit matchmaker.
PitchPerfectly by Levin & team — AI coach for presentations.

Special mention: CheapTravel by Fadil & Sanije.

[Lorenz Graef @lgraef]

Where do AI agents create the most leverage in your work right now: speeding up existing steps, or removing entire steps from the process? I am increasingly interested in the second category.

[Lorenz Graef @lgraef]

Today is pitch day at our AI Coding Hackathon at STARTPLATZ Cologne. Teams start presenting live at 2pm. If you want to see what builders can turn into working AI prototypes in 48 hours, this is the moment to follow along.

[Lorenz Graef @lgraef]

A question for people building with AI agents: where have you seen the biggest gain so far? Speeding up an existing step, or deleting/reorganizing the step completely? My current bias: the second one is where the real leverage is.

[Lorenz Graef @lgraef]

AI adoption is moving from tool access to workflow design. The teams that get ahead are not just adding copilots. They are rebuilding how work moves from idea to prototype, from data to decision, and from experiment to operating system.

[Lorenz Graef @lgraef]

The interesting shift is not that AI writes more code. It is that the work environment itself starts becoming agentic: threads, workflows, research, security checks, deployment steps. Software teams will not just move faster. They will reorganize how work is owned.

[Lorenz Graef @lgraef]

Day 2 of our AI Coding Hackathon at STARTPLATZ. Sold out again, with RWTH Aachen students and builders from different backgrounds. Projects: WhatsApp group manager, bookkeeping automation, AI research radar, B2B lead qualification, fitness coach. AI becomes concrete work.

[Lorenz Graef @lgraef]

Your company may rank well on Google.

But does ChatGPT recommend you — or your competitor?

On June 3, Niclas Hoffmann shows live how GEO Tracking makes AI visibility measurable.

https://t.co/eE3JZsdS2L

[Lorenz Graef @lgraef]

Curious about GEO / visibility in AI answer engines:

What have you already seen change in practice?

Are leads, branded searches or inbound questions shifting because people find answers in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini etc. instead of Google?

[Lorenz Graef @lgraef]

I'm rebuilding my own workflow around AI:

X as radar.
Bookmarks as intake.
Heinrich as assistant.
Then posts, tests, contacts and event ideas.

The lesson so far: productivity does not come from one new tool.
It comes from redesigning the information flow.

[Lorenz Graef @lgraef]

The bottleneck in AI is shifting.

Access to strong models is becoming cheap.

The hard part is reorganizing how teams decide, write, sell, support and learn around AI.

The winners won't just have better prompts.
They will change the operating rhythm.

[Lorenz Graef @lgraef]

@Zephyr_hg Sales