Most researchers use AI by copying material into ChatGPT, asking a question, and then copying the answer back into their workflow. That works, but it turns the researcher into a middleman moving information between the AI and the tools where real work happens: Stata, LaTeX, and the file system.
Workshop Proposal
AI Agents for Economists Beyond the Chat Window
This workshop introduces AI agents through the perspective of real economist workflows. The focus is not on abstract demos, but on what changes when an AI tool can directly read files, run commands, and work across the software people already use.
Overview
What the workshop is about
AI agents remove that middleman. Instead of chatting through a browser, you give an agent a plain-language instruction and it acts directly: reading files, writing code, running analyses, and producing output. That is not just faster. It also makes new kinds of multi-step work possible.
This workshop introduces Claude Code as the main teaching example, but the ideas generalize across tools such as Codex CLI, GitHub Copilot CLI, Gemini CLI, and Cursor CLI.
Topics
What we plan to cover
Chat vs. Agent
What changes when AI can directly access your files, tools, and terminal instead of only responding in a browser window.
Getting Started with Claude Code
Installation, first-run setup, and a practical tour of how a terminal agent fits into real work.
Live Demos
Examples from research, presentations, and teaching workflows that show where agents are genuinely useful.
Reusable Skills and Workflows
How recurring tasks can be turned into repeatable workflows instead of one-off prompts.
Opportunities, limits, and what changes for economists
The workshop will close by discussing what these tools genuinely improve, where they still fail, and what kinds of work they are most likely to reshape.
Outcomes
What participants should leave with
By the end of the workshop, participants should be able to install and run an AI agent, understand when agent tools outperform chat interfaces, and identify at least one recurring task in their own workflow that could be automated.
This session will also serve as a pilot workshop ahead of the Macedonia-Illinois Workshop in May 2026, so feedback from participants will directly shape how the material develops next.