Barrett Nash is the co-founder of InfiniteUp, a company powering AI agent ecosystems for small businesses across the world. With a background that spans pioneering mobility platforms in Africa to building AI-native tools used from Accra to New York, Barrett is shaping the practical future of artificial intelligence. In this interview, he shares how AI agents are redefining work, opportunity, and leadership.
Let’s start at the beginning. How did your journey in tech, especially in Africa, begin?
I’m Canadian. Back in 2007, I was burned out in university and decided to volunteer as a teacher in Ghana. That experience changed everything for me. I saw a level of ambition and hunger for progress that was inspiring—but also systemic barriers holding people back. It planted the seed: what would it take to unlock this potential?
Later I joined MIT Media Lab’s One Laptop Per Child project in Rwanda, helping distribute 240,000 laptops. It was a well-intentioned failure that taught me that education alone, especially done bureaucratically, isn’t enough. So I started building startups—first a mobile internet café, then SafeMotos, a safer Uber for motorcycle taxis, which scaled to 5,000 rides a day. That company eventually hit a wall—bad unit economics, like many Uber-style businesses.
But through all of it, I kept coming back to this question: what kind of technology can scale across borders and transform lives quickly? That’s what led me to InfiniteUp and ultimately to AI agents.
What inspired the shift from mobility and hardware to AI?
The core thread is the same—how do we unlock economic potential, fast? With SafeMotos, we realized no matter how good the tech is, scaling physical infrastructure in markets like Kinshasa is hard, expensive, and slow.
I read about how WhatsApp was built by 12 people and sold for $19 billion. That stuck with me. It was infinitely scalable, borderless, lightweight. I realized: that’s the kind of model I want to build. And when generative AI broke through in late 2022, we were well-positioned. My team and I were already building apps and working with APIs. We quickly moved into building AI-native tools—starting with Doer Business, which helps small business owners grow using AI agents.
Most people still think of AI as chatbots or automation. What exactly are AI agents?
Right now, most people experience AI as a one-to-one tool—ChatGPT being the most well-known. You ask it something, it responds. But that’s not scalable. It puts the burden on the user to know what to ask and manage the whole process.
AI agents are different. Think of them as intelligent assistants or coworkers with specialized roles. At InfiniteUp, we build organizational charts of AI agents—each one with a domain: marketing, operations, legal, finance, etc. These agents report to a central COO AI, who interviews the business owner daily, processes what needs to be done, assigns tasks to the other agents, and brings back a summarized daily briefing.
This model creates structure, accountability, and scale. It’s not just “chatting with AI”—it’s AI actively running business processes with human oversight.
Can you give a real-world example of what this looks like?
Absolutely. Let’s say you’re a small business owner and you want to grow your Instagram presence. You talk to your COO AI about this. The AI flags this to your marketing agent, who prepares image and caption ideas, tailored to current trends. You get a daily brief with a preview. You click approve, and it’s posted automatically.
You’re not writing prompts. You’re managing a team—with AI doing the heavy lifting.
There’s a lot of fear around AI replacing jobs. What’s your take?
That fear is valid—but often misdirected. AI will change jobs. That’s inevitable. But it doesn’t mean mass replacement. It means augmentation.
We’re already seeing a new role emerge: humans managing AI. For example, someone might oversee hundreds of AI conversations in a contact center. You’re no longer the person typing out every line—you’re guiding the overall direction, correcting edge cases, and leveraging AI for speed and scale.
And here’s the opportunity: the skills needed to thrive in AI are more accessible than people realize. You don’t need a computer science degree. You need strong critical thinking and the ability to communicate clearly in natural language. That’s the new leverage.
How can youth—especially in emerging markets—participate in this shift?
This is one of the first global tech shifts where there’s no gatekeeping. The AI era isn’t being driven solely by Silicon Valley PhDs. Anyone with curiosity and initiative can learn to use these tools. You can literally build an AI product with low-code platforms like Flutterflow, connect it to GPT or Claude via API, and ship something valuable in a weekend.
It’s an open playing field. And the kinds of solutions needed globally—education, agriculture, logistics, finance—are especially ripe for AI-native thinking. Young entrepreneurs in Africa have a unique vantage point. They can build for local needs, test fast, and then scale globally.
What role should governments and institutions play?
Governments need to resist the temptation to build their own large language models from scratch. That’s like building your own browser in the early internet days—it’s expensive and unnecessary. Instead, they should focus on enabling ecosystems.
What’s needed is infrastructure: AI education at all levels, low-latency internet, open data policies, and streamlined procurement for AI-driven startups. And governments should use AI themselves—not to replace workers, but to make services faster, more transparent, and more accountable.
In a world of rapid change, what kind of leadership will thrive?
Leaders who embrace uncertainty, value experimentation, and don’t cling to old systems. You don’t need to know exactly where we’re going—but you do need to think critically, act decisively, and stay open to change.
And in the AI age, leadership also means communication. AI speaks natural language. The better you are at expressing your ideas clearly, the more effective you’ll be in working with AI systems.
Final words to someone hesitant about engaging with AI?
Just try it. Don’t read another headline. Don’t wait until it’s perfect. Go to ChatGPT, Claude, or Doer Business. Ask questions. Push the boundaries.
AI won’t replace you—but someone using AI better than you might. That’s the reality. The good news? The tools are here, and the moment is now.
Where can people learn more about your work?
Visit InfiniteUp.dev or connect with me on Twitter @Barrett_Nash. I’m always happy to engage—this is an era of shared learning, and good ideas come from everywhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tux77KSXz14Want to bring AI to your business? Setup an exploratory call with InfiniteUp CEO Barrett Nash here or reach out at nash@infiniteup.dev