Jul 20, 2026

Sandboxing, Agent Harnesses, and Agent Teamwork

Shahram Anver, CEO of Cleric, details how AI agents for SRE are evolving beyond fast triage to continuous learning and operational memory. He discusses Cleric's architectural shifts, from complex early designs to simpler, sandboxed query agents, and the unique challenges SRE agents face in diverse production environments. A core focus is on human-agent interaction, redefining roles as managers overseeing agents, and how agents learn from unstructured data like Slack to build robust, actionable knowledge for autonomous, self-healing infrastructure. The discussion also touches on the future of software, differentiating between durable systems and rapidly developed "skills" or "vibe-coded" solutions.

Jul 18, 2026

Content Is Code - Matt Palmer, Conductor

Matt Palmer discusses how code, empowered by AI, is becoming the fastest and most efficient medium for technical content creation, emphasizing that while code is cheap, structure and conscientiousness are now the most valuable assets for producing high-quality output. He predicts the rise of "content engineers" who leverage declarative pipelines to automate technical communication.

Jul 17, 2026

Research to Reality with Google DeepMind — Benoit Schillings, Google DeepMind, VP of Technology

Benoit Schillings, VP of Technology at Google DeepMind, explores the evolution of AI's role in software development, highlighting the transition from human-limited coding to an AI frontier where syntax generation is solved. He delves into the power of self-play for model training, the shifting economics of software engineering, and the imperative for active guardrails. Schillings also discusses the need for inductive architecture, advanced model planning, multimodal reasoning (as seen in Gemini), and the potential for AI to drive scientific breakthroughs in fields like chemistry and biology by uncovering patterns imperceptible to human bias.

Jul 13, 2026

Why a Nation Can't Outsource Its Frontier AI - Alistair Pullen (Cosine AI)

Alistair Pullen, CEO of Cosine, discusses the UK's sovereign AI initiative, born from US export controls. He outlines Cosine's unique economic model, competing with "millions" against "billions" by licensing models instead of hosting inference. Pullen delves into why open models lag frontier systems, emphasizing active parameters and post-training data. He explains Cosine's innovative approach to "slop" through process-based RL and credit attribution, advocating for runtime proof in code review. The conversation covers their hierarchical "Swarm" sub-agent system, the challenges of memory, and advanced synthetic data generation, concluding on the geopolitical impact of export controls as an unexpected catalyst for UK AI.

Jul 10, 2026

Should AI Engineers Still Read Code in 2026? The Z/L Continuum — Alex Volkov, ThursdAI

Alex Volkov introduces the "Z/L Continuum," a framework for navigating the tension between rapid AI-generated code production and the critical need for human review. He argues that the key lies in understanding that the continuum applies to tasks, not individuals, and presents a pragmatic routing table for verifying changes based on their criticality, highlighting the shift towards engineering systems that build and verify code, rather than meticulously inspecting every line. The talk also touches on emerging capabilities like Fable and "loops" and the importance of flexibility and human judgment in the evolving AI engineering landscape.

Jun 28, 2026

Building an Autonomous Engineering Org - Angie Jones, Agentic AI Foundation

Angie Jones details Block's journey in transforming its engineering organization into an autonomous one using AI agents. She outlines a five-stage AI maturity model, the strategic implementation of an 'AI Champions' program, and the technical steps taken to make repositories AI-ready and enable seamless agent delegation directly within developer workflows. The talk covers challenges in scaling multi-agent parallelism, including code review bottlenecks and resource management, and the development of an orchestrator ('Builder Bot') and 'Company World Model' to achieve full autonomy. It concludes with a critical reflection on the ethical implications of achieving such high levels of AI-driven automation.