Artificial intelligence is moving beyond answering questions, writing emails, and generating content.
The next major shift is happening behind the scenes: AI systems that can actually perform work, interact with business applications, make decisions, and coordinate entire business processes.
One platform making significant moves in this direction is Make.com.
If you’ve previously looked at Make as simply another way to connect apps and automate repetitive tasks, it’s time to take another look.
Throughout 2026, Make has introduced a series of significant upgrades that are changing what businesses can accomplish without building expensive custom software or hiring developers.
And some of these developments are genuinely impressive.
Let’s look at seven features that deserve your attention.
1. Maia by Make: Build Automations by Simply Describing What You Want
One of the biggest developments is Maia, Make’s conversational AI coworker.
Instead of manually dragging modules onto a canvas, configuring connections, and figuring out how different applications communicate, you can describe the business process you want to automate.
Maia helps translate that description into a visual automation.
But the October 2026 upgrade makes this even more interesting.
New capabilities include:
- Plan Mode: Review the proposed workflow before Maia makes changes.
- Memory: Maia can remember your preferences between projects.
- Image Input: Upload a screenshot, sketch, or workflow diagram and have Maia interpret it.
- Error Resolution: Maia can examine failed executions and propose fixes for your review.
- Build Mode: Work collaboratively with Maia as it develops your automation.
Think about what this means for a small business owner.
You could describe how incoming customer inquiries should be handled, show Maia a diagram of your existing process, review its proposed automation, and approve the build.
You don’t have to understand every technical component to get started.
This is a major step toward making sophisticated automation accessible to people who aren’t developers.
2. Make AI Agents: Automation That Can Actually Make Decisions
Traditional automation follows predetermined instructions. When something happens, perform a specific action.
AI agents introduce another dimension: the ability to interpret information, select appropriate tools, and make decisions within a defined workflow.
Make’s next-generation AI Agents are built directly into the visual scenario builder. This is important because you can see how the agent operates rather than relying on an invisible process.
Features include:
- A visual reasoning panel.
- Visibility into tool calls and decisions.
- In-canvas testing and conversations.
- Custom instructions and selectable AI models.
- Reusable agents that can be shared across workflows.
- Support for files such as PDFs, images, and CSVs.
Imagine a real estate agency receiving 50 new inquiries.
An AI agent could examine each inquiry, identify whether the person is a buyer or seller, evaluate the information provided, and route the inquiry to the appropriate workflow.
A traditional automation can follow a fixed decision tree. An AI agent can interpret less predictable information and determine which available action is appropriate.
That distinction opens up considerably more possibilities.
3. AI Sub-Agents: Build an Entire Digital Workforce
This is one of the developments we find particularly exciting.
Make introduced AI Sub-Agents in July 2026. Instead of forcing one AI agent to handle an entire complicated process, you can create a primary agent that delegates individual responsibilities to specialist agents.
Think of it as building a digital department.
For example, a small service business could have:
- Lead Management Agent: Reviews and categorizes incoming leads.
- Customer Service Agent: Handles routine customer inquiries.
- Scheduling Agent: Coordinates appointments.
- Research Agent: Gathers relevant information.
- Reporting Agent: Compiles performance reports.
The primary agent receives a request and determines which specialist should handle each responsibility. The specialist agents perform their assigned tasks and return their results.
This is called multi-agent orchestration.
Instead of building one enormous automation with dozens of complicated branches, businesses can organize work into specialized responsibilities. The potential applications extend across nearly every industry.
4. MCP Connectivity: Connecting AI to the Applications Your Business Already Uses
You’ve probably heard the term MCP, or Model Context Protocol.
MCP is becoming an important part of the AI ecosystem because it provides a standardized way for AI systems to interact with external tools and services.
Make has expanded its MCP capabilities, allowing AI agents to access tools and actions through MCP connections. It also introduced MCP toolboxes that allow selected Make scenarios to be exposed as controlled tools to compatible AI clients.
Why does this matter?
Consider a business using Google Workspace, Salesforce, Slack, QuickBooks, a customer relationship management system, and an appointment scheduling platform.
Instead of treating each application as an isolated system, Make can help connect these applications into coordinated processes. An AI system can use available tools to retrieve information, initiate actions, and move work between applications.
This is where automation starts becoming business infrastructure rather than simply a convenience.
5. Make Grid: See Your Entire Automation Ecosystem
As businesses begin implementing more AI agents and automations, another problem emerges. How do you keep track of everything?
Make Grid addresses this by providing a visual map of an organization’s automation and AI landscape.
Rather than looking at individual workflows in isolation, businesses can get a broader view of how their systems and processes connect. This becomes particularly valuable as automation expands.
Business owners and operations managers can better understand their automation environment, identify relationships between workflows, and manage increasingly complex systems.
Think of it as an operations map for your digital business infrastructure.
6. More Powerful AI Models Inside Make
Another important development is the expanding selection of AI models available directly within Make.
The platform has continued adding models from major AI providers, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and xAI.
This creates opportunities to select models based on the task. For example:
- A fast, inexpensive model could classify incoming emails.
- A more capable reasoning model could analyze complex customer requests.
- An image-capable model could examine uploaded documents or pictures.
- A specialized AI agent could coordinate a multi-step business process.
The advantage is flexibility. You aren’t necessarily locked into one AI provider or one model for every task. You can build workflows that use different models where they make the most sense.
7. Make + ChatGPT: Bringing Automation Into Your AI Workspace
Make also introduced an official ChatGPT integration in September 2026.
The integration was designed to let users build, run, search, and review Make automations directly through ChatGPT.
However, there is an important availability distinction: as of October 29, 2026, Make is still working toward restoring full public availability of the integration. Early access can be requested, and existing users may retain access.
Make also provides an official MCP connection option for compatible AI clients.
The bigger idea is significant. Imagine describing a business process in an AI conversation and having that AI help create the automation, configure the connected applications, and review the results.
Instead of constantly switching between platforms, the AI conversation becomes another interface for managing your automation infrastructure.
This is a direction worth watching.
What Does This Mean for Small Businesses?
Here’s where things get interesting. You don’t need to be a large corporation to benefit from these technologies.
Consider a small HVAC company. A customer submits a service request through the company’s website. An interconnected automation system could:
- Capture the customer’s information.
- Have an AI agent classify the request.
- Identify whether the request involves an emergency, repair, or installation.
- Check the company’s service area.
- Route the request to the appropriate employee.
- Initiate an appointment scheduling process.
- Update the customer relationship management system.
- Notify the appropriate team member.
- Generate a follow-up task if the customer hasn’t been contacted.
This is only one example. The same principles can be applied to law firms, insurance agencies, real estate offices, contractors, medical administration, e-commerce businesses, and countless other industries.
The opportunity isn’t simply saving a few minutes on repetitive tasks. It’s redesigning how work gets done.
Is Make.com Worth Learning in 2026?
Our answer is yes, particularly if you’re interested in artificial intelligence, business operations, or building automated systems.
The combination of visual automation, AI agents, specialist sub-agents, MCP connectivity, and increasingly capable AI models creates an impressive technology stack.
You can start with a simple automation and gradually develop more sophisticated systems as your understanding grows. You also don’t need to implement everything at once.
Start with one repetitive business process. Identify the bottleneck. Build an automation. Test it. Improve it. Then move to the next process.
That is how meaningful automation takes shape.
Get Started With Make.com
If you haven’t explored Make recently, now is a good time.
You can start experimenting with its visual automation platform and explore how AI agents can help coordinate work across your existing business applications.
Whether you’re a business owner looking to eliminate repetitive administrative work, an entrepreneur interested in AI-powered services, or someone exploring the future of automation, Make is worth putting on your radar.
The businesses that learn how to combine AI with effective automation will have an increasingly important advantage. And the technology is moving quickly.
The question isn’t whether businesses will automate more of their operations. It’s how prepared they’ll be when their competitors do.
Final Thoughts From VIP Stack
At VIP Stack, we believe the biggest opportunity in artificial intelligence isn’t simply using smarter chatbots.
It’s putting AI to work.
The next generation of business technology will combine intelligent decision-making, connected applications, and automated execution. Make.com is building toward that future.
And we’re just getting started.
Related reading: What Is Make.com and How Does It Work? A Beginner’s Guide to Automation
Affiliate Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you sign up for Make through our link, VIP Stack may earn a commission at no additional cost to you.