Agentic systems

5 Ways to Connect AI Agents to Tools: From APIs to MCP

5 Ways to Connect AI Agents to Tools: From APIs to MCP

Grant Miller outlines five evolving patterns for integrating AI agents with tools, starting from simple direct API connections to complex, secure token-based architectures. The discussion highlights the progression of these methods, emphasizing how authentication, user delegation, abstraction layers like MCP, and secure credential management using vaults improve security, observability, and scalability in agentic systems.

Evolution of agentic surfaces — Gagan Bhat & Isabella Kai He, Anthropic

Evolution of agentic surfaces — Gagan Bhat & Isabella Kai He, Anthropic

Anthropic's Gagan Bhat and Isabella Kai He discuss how agent harnesses must evolve rapidly to keep pace with fast-improving LLMs. They introduce Claude Managed Agents, an architecture that decouples the agent's 'brain' (reasoning) from its 'hands' (tool execution) to address issues like stale assumptions, latency, and reliability. This approach enables dynamic adaptation, secure tool execution, and features like 'dreaming' for self-improving agents and 'outcomes' for goal-oriented task completion, ultimately aiming to close the gap between model capabilities and product offerings.

Kavak's Playbook for Rebuilding a Company Around AI

Kavak's Playbook for Rebuilding a Company Around AI

Alejandro Maza Ayala, Chief Product & AI Officer at Kavak, details how the used-car marketplace transformed into an AI-native company. He explains the 'agent-per-customer' architecture, where individual agents handle 96% of customer interactions and 95% of transactions, outperforming human teams in sales (2.1x better conversion) and even acting as an 'AI CEO' that boosted profits by 50% in an experimental city. The discussion covers the need to redesign company structures, the importance of robust evaluations, and how a 'Jedi Academy' trains all employees, from executives to mechanics, to build and collaborate with AI agents. Ayala argues for 'creative destruction,' suggesting that true AI leverage comes from rebuilding organizations from the ground up, rather than incremental adoption, presenting a massive opportunity for new founders.

Building Closed-Loop Evals for a Multimodal Agent at Scale — Soumya Gupta & Jai Chopra, Uber

Building Closed-Loop Evals for a Multimodal Agent at Scale — Soumya Gupta & Jai Chopra, Uber

This talk details how Uber Eats designed and implemented a multimodal AI agent to enhance food photography for independent merchants, addressing challenges like maintaining authenticity, merchant brand, and marketplace diversity while operating at scale. It covers the intricate evaluation strategies for routing and image editing agents, including continuous learning loops, managing drift, countering reward hacking, and balancing creative freedom with rigid safety guardrails. The speakers explain how they built a closed feedback loop combining offline human labeling, internal dogfooding, and online production signals to ensure robust and adaptive performance.

Local Agentic Theory For Mobile Games — Shafik Quoraishee & Joanne Song, The New York Times

Local Agentic Theory For Mobile Games — Shafik Quoraishee & Joanne Song, The New York Times

This presentation explores the innovative concept of running agentic AI entirely on mobile devices to enhance game accessibility and personalization. It delves into the technical challenges of local AI (space, time, energy budgets), contrasts agentic systems with traditional reinforcement learning, and demonstrates practical applications with a Space Invaders agent and a crossword solver. A key takeaway is the transformation of accessibility from fixed toggles to dynamic, real-time adjustments based on player needs, ultimately envisioning a future of billions of small, personalized local AI brains.

6 Things to Know about AIE World's Fair 2026

6 Things to Know about AIE World's Fair 2026

Discover the AI Engineering World's Fair 2026, the largest iteration yet, offering an unparalleled deep dive into AI engineering with expanded tracks on auto research, GPU specialization, and new verticals like finance and healthcare. Highlights include an innovative expo experience, exclusive leadership initiatives like the "Token Billionaires Program," and unique side events fostering community, including "Posters on AI" where attendees can defend their tweets. This event is designed to be a curated hub for practical, cutting-edge insights and networking in the AI/ML professional landscape.