Large language models are transforming search from a static, stateless process into a dynamic, agent-based reasoning system. This talk explores the practical patterns—like query rewriting, hybrid retrieval, and agent-based reranking—for building and deploying these 'agentic search' systems at scale, covering the architectural principles, production challenges, and the future trajectory where search itself may dissolve into understanding.
Mefta Sadat from Loblaw Digital discusses Alfred, an agentic orchestration layer designed to run AI shopping agents reliably in production. He covers the architecture built with LangGraph and GCP, the role of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) in simplifying API interaction, and practical MLOps strategies for observability, cost management, and ensuring reliability.
Sherwin Wu, head of engineering for OpenAI’s API platform, discusses the radical transformation of software engineering. He shares how 95% of OpenAI engineers use Codex to manage fleets of AI agents, cutting code review times from 15 to 3 minutes. Wu explores the widening productivity gap, the changing role of managers in an AI-first world, and why "models will eat your scaffolding for breakfast", urging developers to build for where AI is going, not where it is today.
Bryan Catanzaro, NVIDIA's VP of Applied Deep Learning Research, explains the business rationale behind developing open models like Nemotron. The strategy is twofold: to drive internal systems R&D for future hardware and to support the broader AI ecosystem, which in turn expands NVIDIA's market.
Zach Lloyd, founder of Warp, discusses how the terminal is becoming the central workbench for AI-powered development. He explores the convergence of IDEs and terminals, the rise of cloud-based agent swarms, and his thesis that coding will soon be a "solved" problem, making the clear expression of human intent the final bottleneck.
Sam Altman discusses the future of AI, covering the evolution of software engineering, the challenges for AI startups, the roadmap for model capabilities and costs, and the broader societal impacts on economics, security, and education.