News/Agents
AI coding agents cross the chasm from assistants to autonomous collaborators
AI coding agents have fundamentally shifted from helpful assistants to autonomous collaborators capable of completing entire development tasks. This transformation represents a crossing of what the author describes as a "chasm" - moving beyond simple autocomplete functionality to genuine "delegate-to" relationships where AI agents function like determined interns who can handle substantial coding work independently. The capability evolution: The author maps AI coding progress through distinct phases, with current tools reaching a "Conscientious Intern" level that can autonomously complete small tasks, provide patient debugging assistance, and conduct code review analysis. Previous stages included "Active Collaborator" (real-time pair programming) and "Smarter...
read Jun 16, 2025Y Combinator’s spring cohort features 70 agentic startups. Here are the 10 most intriguing.
Y Combinator's inaugural spring cohort delivered exactly what Silicon Valley was hoping for: a surge of AI agent startups ready to transform how businesses operate. The legendary startup accelerator, which has launched companies like Stripe, Airbnb, and DoorDash, made its priorities clear when it issued a call earlier this year for founders building "agentic" AI—software systems that can think, reason, and perform complex tasks autonomously without constant human oversight. The response was overwhelming. Of the 144 companies selected for YC's spring 2025 batch, 70 focus on building AI agents, according to the accelerator's startup directory. This represents nearly half of...
read Jun 12, 2025Agentic AI or AI agent? CIOs warned against agent marketing hype as vendors oversell capabilities
AI practitioners are beginning to distinguish between AI agents and agentic AI as two related but separate technologies, with experts warning CIOs against vendor confusion and marketing hype. Understanding this distinction is crucial for IT leaders to make informed purchasing decisions and avoid overpaying for "glorified chatbots" masquerading as advanced AI systems. What you should know: AI agents and agentic AI serve different purposes and have distinct capabilities that CIOs need to understand. AI agents are tools designed for specific functions within IT systems, with predictable outcomes and limited learning ability. Agentic AI is an umbrella technology that uses agents...
read Jun 12, 2025Maverick: AI system autonomously pilots fighter jet in first real-world combat test
Swedish defense contractor Saab and German AI company Helsing successfully conducted the first real-world test flights of an AI-powered combat aircraft, with their Centaur AI system taking control of a Gripen-E fighter jet's long-range maneuvers over the Baltic Sea in late May. The milestone represents a significant advancement in autonomous military aviation, as the AI agent independently managed flight paths, recommended missile targeting, and executed evasive maneuvers during three test flights. What you should know: The AI system demonstrated autonomous combat capabilities that traditionally require human pilot intervention. Helsing's Centaur AI pilot took control of long-range flight maneuvers from human...
read Jun 12, 2025Nearly 50% of Y Combinator’s Spring 2025 startup batch builds AI agents
The new AAA is "All About Agents." Y Combinator has reached a new milestone in its AI focus, with 67 of the 144 startups in its Spring 2025 batch—nearly 50%—building AI agents or tools for creating them. This represents both a significant increase from previous cohorts and a clear signal of where the startup ecosystem is heading, as the famed accelerator continues to reflect broader market trends while commanding premium valuations that have some investors reconsidering their approach. The big picture: YC's AI agent concentration has grown from 58 out of 163 companies in Winter 2025 to 67 out of...
read Jun 11, 2025PE billionaire predicts 60% of investor jobs will be lost to AI, despite agentic struggles
Private equity billionaire Robert Smith told a crowd of 5,500 investors at the SuperReturn conference in Berlin that 60 percent of them will be jobless within a year due to AI automation. Smith's stark prediction comes despite mounting evidence that AI agents remain largely ineffective at complex tasks, with nearly 75 percent of businesses failing to deliver promised returns on their AI investments. What he's saying: Smith, who runs Vista Equity Partners, painted a dramatic picture of AI's impact on knowledge workers during his presentation. "We think that next year, 40 percent of the people at this conference will have...
read Jun 11, 2025Outset raises $17M to automate market research with AI interviews
Outset, a San Francisco startup using AI to conduct market research interviews, has raised $17 million in Series A funding led by 8VC to accelerate adoption among Fortune 500 enterprises. The two-year-old company promises to deliver research results that are 8 times faster, 81 percent less expensive, and provide 10 times more reach than traditional human-led research, with major customers including Nestlé, Microsoft, and WeightWatchers already replacing decades-old market research methods. What you should know: Outset has developed the first AI-moderated research platform that conducts video interviews with participants at unprecedented scale and speed. AI moderators use computer-generated voice, text,...
read Jun 11, 2025Vanta’s AI agent cuts compliance work from 8 hours to 1 hour weekly
Vanta has launched an AI Agent designed to automate compliance tasks and transform governance from a reactive burden into a proactive business function. The agent aims to streamline fragmented compliance processes by reasoning over frameworks, detecting inconsistencies, and making data-driven recommendations, potentially reshaping how organizations approach trust and accountability in security management. The big picture: Compliance is evolving from episodic, manual processes to continuous, AI-driven monitoring that can accelerate business operations rather than slow them down. Companies like WorkJam, a workforce management platform, report dramatic efficiency gains, with compliance tasks dropping from seven or eight hours per week to just...
read Jun 11, 2025Everyday low price agentic AI: Walmart launches “Sparky” shopping assistant
Walmart has launched Sparky, a generative AI-powered shopping assistant embedded in its mobile app that goes beyond traditional chatbots to function as an autonomous agent. The move represents Walmart's most aggressive bet on agentic AI, positioning the retail giant to transform shopping from a search-driven experience into a service-based interaction while competing directly with Amazon and other retailers racing to deploy AI assistants. What you should know: Sparky can currently summarize reviews, compare products, suggest items for specific occasions, and answer real-world questions about sports teams and events. Upcoming features will include reordering and scheduling services, visual understanding for image...
read Jun 10, 2025Cisco launches AI-powered network management that cuts troubleshooting to seconds
Cisco has unveiled new AI-powered networking hardware and software designed to automate network management tasks at "machine speed" through its AgenticOps framework. The announcement, made at Cisco Live 2024 in San Diego, introduces routers, switches, and management tools powered by Cisco's proprietary Deep Network Model. The move positions the networking giant to capture enterprise demand for autonomous network operations while keeping IT teams in control. Key hardware launches: Cisco introduced multiple product lines optimized for AI workloads across campus and industrial environments. New secure router models (8100, 8200, 8300, 8400, and 8500) deliver three times the throughput of previous versions...
read Jun 10, 2025Cutting to the chase: Zencoder’s AI testing agent takes QA work from days to mere hours
Zencoder has launched Zentester, an AI-powered agent that automates end-to-end software testing, promising to compress days of quality assurance work into just two hours. The tool addresses a critical bottleneck in AI-driven development, where accelerated code generation has created overwhelming testing requirements that traditional QA processes can't handle efficiently. What you should know: Zentester operates on plain English instructions and can interact with applications like a human tester—clicking buttons, filling forms, and navigating workflows—while validating both frontend and backend functionality. The AI agent integrates with existing testing frameworks like Playwright and Selenium rather than replacing them entirely. Early customer Club...
read Jun 9, 2025London AI Summit 2025 spotlights autonomous agents as next tech frontier
London's premier AI conference is positioning autonomous agents as the technology story of 2025, bringing together government officials, tech giants, and industry pioneers to explore how artificial intelligence is evolving from helpful assistant to independent decision-maker. AI Summit London 2025, taking place June 11-12 at the historic Tobacco Dock, serves as the centerpiece of London Tech Week and promises to illuminate the rapidly expanding world of agentic AI. Unlike traditional AI systems that respond to prompts and generate content, agentic AI represents sophisticated systems capable of independent decision-making and autonomous operation without constant human oversight. Think of it as the...
read Jun 9, 2025IBM’s orchestration strategy connects AI agents as Gartner predicts 33% adoption
IBM is positioning itself as a leader in agentic AI orchestration, emphasizing integrated enterprise solutions over isolated AI implementations. The company's approach focuses on connecting AI agents across business workflows through orchestration layers, aiming to transform individual productivity gains into systematic enterprise-wide advantages as Gartner, a research and advisory firm, predicts 33% of enterprise software will include agentic AI by 2028. The big picture: While many enterprises struggle to scale AI agent benefits beyond individual workflows, IBM's orchestration-focused strategy addresses fragmentation issues that prevent meaningful productivity gains. The company emphasizes an "open, hybrid approach" that manages both custom and third-party...
read Jun 6, 2025Mixus AI tool integrates human oversight for enhanced results
Mixus.ai is tackling one of AI's most persistent problems—hallucinations—by reintroducing a critical component that modern AI systems often lack: human judgment. The startup's approach of combining artificial intelligence with human expertise provides a safeguard against the embarrassing and potentially harmful errors that even advanced AI models frequently produce, offering a practical solution to a problem that has plagued enterprise AI adoption. The big picture: Mixus.ai has created a hybrid AI system that routes AI-generated content through human experts before delivery, addressing the accuracy problems that continue to plague even the most advanced AI models. The platform allows users to not...
read Jun 4, 2025Leaders from MIT, GAI Insights discuss how AI is reshaping the business landscape
Adapting business and development practices for the AI era requires organizations to rethink everything from how they handle data to the fundamental incentive structures that drive innovation. A recent panel at IIA featuring executives from John Hancock, GAI Insights, and MIT CSAIL highlighted critical shifts in operational approaches as AI becomes more deeply embedded in enterprise environments. Their insights reveal a growing focus on operational transformation, data quality, and the human element as organizations navigate the rapidly evolving AI landscape. The big picture: Industry experts are advocating for a fundamental transformation in how organizations approach AI implementation, moving beyond iterative...
read Jun 2, 2025ElevenLabs launches advanced AI voice agents for conversations
ElevenLabs' Conversational AI 2.0 marks a significant evolution in voice agent technology, introducing advanced capabilities that make AI interactions more natural and effective. Released just five months after the original platform, this update delivers enterprise-ready features designed to create more sophisticated and trustworthy AI communications. The new system combines human-like conversation capabilities with enhanced knowledge integration and operational efficiency, positioning it as a comprehensive solution for businesses seeking to deploy advanced voice AI. The big picture: ElevenLabs has engineered more natural human-AI interactions through custom models that make conversations flow more intuitively. The new turn-taking model analyzes conversational cues like...
read May 28, 2025How “TuringBots” are reshaping the developer’s role
Forrester's latest research pivot highlights how autonomous coding through AI agents is rapidly transforming software development beyond simple code generation. This strategic shift in research focus recognizes that the convergence of generative AI and autonomous agents represents the next evolution in software engineering—what Forrester calls "TuringBots"—creating comprehensive systems capable of independently creating, testing, and delivering applications without human intervention. The big picture: Forrester analyst Christopher Condo is dedicating significant research resources to understanding how AI-powered autonomous coding solutions will revolutionize the entire software development lifecycle. The research will build upon foundational work already established by VP and principal analyst Diego...
read May 28, 2025How agentic AI misses the point of human systems
Agentic AI is being developed with a fundamental conceptual error - treating human systems as games with winners rather than evolving stories with complex dynamics. This philosophical distinction will likely shape AI's development trajectory in the coming years, as we recognize that real-world intelligence isn't about optimization toward fixed endpoints, but adaptation within constantly changing environments. The big picture: Current agentic AI systems are built on reinforcement learning and game theory foundations that frame intelligence as optimization toward winning conditions rather than adaptation to complex realities. Multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) systems use Q-functions to estimate action values, essentially teaching AI...
read May 27, 2025AI-powered autonomous coding gains momentum in tech
Forrester analyst Christopher Condo is shifting his research focus entirely to autonomous coding technologies, signaling the growing importance of AI-powered software development tools. This strategic pivot highlights how quickly the industry is evolving beyond basic generative AI toward fully autonomous systems capable of creating, testing, and delivering applications without human intervention. Understanding these developments will be crucial for software companies and enterprises as they navigate the rapidly changing landscape of AI-enhanced development tools. The big picture: Forrester is intensifying its research into autonomous coding technologies, specifically what they call "TuringBots," which represent the next evolution of AI in software development....
read May 24, 2025What Microsoft’s NLWeb means for the future of the internet
Microsoft's new NLWeb protocol marks a pivotal shift in how websites will interact with AI, offering enterprises a standardized way to make their digital content accessible to AI systems. Similar to how RSS transformed content syndication in the early 2000s, NLWeb creates a framework for websites to become AI-ready through natural language interfaces. This protocol represents a significant advancement in the evolution of the web, potentially changing how users and AI agents alike access and interact with online information. The big picture: Microsoft has launched NLWeb, an open-source protocol designed to AI-enable websites by creating natural language interfaces that work...
read May 23, 2025Python agents in 70 lines: Building with MCP
Hugging Face's new MCP-powered Python framework allows developers to create sophisticated AI agents with minimal code, streamlining how language models interact with external tools. This implementation simplifies agent development by standardizing tool interactions through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), enabling Python developers to rapidly build conversational AI systems that can leverage a growing ecosystem of capabilities without complex custom integrations. The big picture: Hugging Face has extended its hub client SDK to support the Model Context Protocol (MCP), allowing Python developers to create AI agents in roughly 70 lines of code. MCP standardizes how large language models interact with external...
read May 23, 2025Why clear definitions of agentic AI matter now more than ever
Agentic AI represents a significant architectural approach that combines multiple technologies to enable autonomous, goal-oriented systems that can plan and execute complex tasks with minimal human intervention. As organizations rush to incorporate these capabilities, the lack of standardized definitions has led to confusion, exaggerated claims, and "agentic washing," where solutions are falsely marketed as agentic AI. This definitional chaos makes it impossible to identify appropriate use cases, metrics, and return on investment for these emerging technologies. The big picture: Agentic AI is not a single application or technology but an architecture that integrates various components to create highly autonomous, goal-oriented...
read May 22, 2025These new AI tools put Google at the center of digital convenience
Google's I/O 2025 event spotlights a suite of AI advancements that edge toward science fiction-level convenience in everyday digital interactions. From multimodal assistants that can make phone calls on your behalf to AI-powered browser extensions that transform online tasks, these technologies represent a significant evolution in how humans will interact with computers and the internet. The showcased innovations highlight Google's strategic push to integrate AI more deeply into its ecosystem while addressing complex user needs. 1. Project Astra: Your Universal Personal Assistant Project Astra builds on Google DeepMind's vision of creating a "universal AI agent" capable of understanding and interacting...
read May 22, 2025How Stanford Medicine uses Microsoft AI to transform oncology workflows
Microsoft's Azure AI Foundry is pioneering a sophisticated multi-agent AI collaboration system that fundamentally changes how AI applications are built and deployed. This breakthrough platform integrates coding, collaboration, and cloud hosting environments to enable complex orchestration of multiple AI agents working together—with Stanford Medicine's tumor analysis system demonstrating its life-saving potential in healthcare settings. As major tech companies unveil competing advancements, Microsoft's agent orchestration approach represents a significant evolution in AI deployment that will likely define the industry throughout 2025 and beyond. The big picture: Microsoft's Azure AI Foundry combines three essential components—code environment (Visual Studio), collaboration platform (GitHub), and...
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