Do I Need Agents? | Gartner’s Haritha Khandabattu

02/19/25 • 45 min

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If you’re an engineering leader or CIO and haven’t already implemented agents, you’re probably being asked to. But the question you should ask yourself isn’t simply why; it’s where.

This week, Haritha Khandabattu, Senior Director Analyst for AI at Gartner, joins us to cut through the hype surrounding AI agents. She provides real-world examples of successful implementations and reveals how to avoid common pitfalls. Listen now to discover the crucial questions leaders should ask before taking the plunge, including assessing your organization's needs and identifying the right use cases.

Chapters:

00:00 The Hype and Reality of AI Agents

05:33 Challenges and Ethical Considerations of AI Agents

14:18 Evaluating AI Agents: Benchmarks and Misconceptions

22:21 Building vs. Buying AI Solutions

26:43 Collaboration Between Data and Software Engineering Teams

33:48 AI's Impact on Software Development

37:37 The Zone of Deep Productivity

40:44 Practical Takeaways for Implementing AI Agents

44:15 Conclusion and Farewell

Follow the hosts

Follow⁠⁠⁠⁠ Atin⁠⁠⁠⁠

Follow⁠⁠⁠⁠ Conor⁠⁠⁠

Follow⁠⁠ Vikram⁠⁠

Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠Yash⁠⁠⁠⁠

Follow Haritha

LinkedIn:⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/harithakhandabattu/

Show Notes

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Check out Galileo

⁠⁠⁠Try Galileo⁠⁠

If you’re an engineering leader or CIO and haven’t already implemented agents, you’re probably being asked to. But the question you should ask yourself isn’t simply why; it’s where.

Chapters:

00:00 The Hype and Reality of AI Agents

05:33 Challenges and Ethical Considerations of AI Agents

14:18 Evaluating AI Agents: Benchmarks and Misconceptions

22:21 Building vs. Buying AI Solutions

26:43 Collaboration Between Data and Software Engineering Teams

33:48 AI's Impact on Software Development

37:37 The Zone of Deep Productivity

40:44 Practical Takeaways for Implementing AI Agents

44:15 Conclusion and Farewell

Follow the hosts

Follow⁠⁠⁠⁠ Atin⁠⁠⁠⁠

Follow⁠⁠⁠⁠ Conor⁠⁠⁠

Follow⁠⁠ Vikram⁠⁠

Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠Yash⁠⁠⁠⁠

Follow Haritha

LinkedIn:⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/harithakhandabattu/

Show Notes

Subscribe to Gartner

Check out Galileo

⁠⁠⁠Try Galileo⁠⁠

Previous Episode

The Making of Gemini 2.0: DeepMind's Approach to AI Development and Deployment | Logan Kilpatrick

Google’s strength in AI has often seemed to get lost in the midst of OpenAI announcements or DeepSeek fervor - yet Gemini 2.0 is more than good for many tasks; it’s the model to beat - and we have the research to back it up.

This week, Logan Kilpatrick, senior product manager at Google DeepMind, joins us to discuss Gemini’s creation story, its emergence as the premiere model in the AI race, and why the launch of Gemini 2.0 is great news for developers.

During the conversation Conor and Logan explore the exciting world of multimodal AI, Gemini's strengths in agentic use cases, and its unique approach to function calling, compositional function calling, and the seamless integration of tools like search and code execution.

They also chat about Logan’s vision for a future where AI interacts with the world more naturally, offering a view of the potential of vision-first AI agents, and why Google's hardware advantage is enabling Gemini's impressive performance and long context capabilities.

Follow along with the discussion using Galileo’s AI Agent Leaderboard:https://huggingface.co/spaces/galileo-ai/agent-leaderboard

Chapters:00:00 DeepMind's Role in Gemini's Development

03:49 Gemini 2.0 Updates and Developer Highlights

06:08 Agentic Use Cases and Function Calling

11:29 Multimodal Capabilities

16:15 Putting AI in Production

21:06 Gemini's Differentiation and Hardware

31:22 Future Vision for Gemini and G Suite Integration

35:23 Gemini for Developers

39:02 Conclusion and Farewell

Follow the hosts

Follow⁠⁠⁠Atin⁠⁠⁠

Follow⁠⁠⁠Conor⁠⁠

Follow⁠Vikram⁠

Follow⁠⁠⁠Yash⁠⁠⁠

Follow Logan

Twitter:@OfficialLoganK

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/logankilpatrick/

Show Notes

Try Gemini for yourself:gemini.google.com

Gemini for Developers:aistudio.google.com

Check out Galileo

⁠⁠Try Galileo⁠⁠

Next Episode

Can Your AI Strategy Be Future-Proof? | Galileo’s Vikram Chatterji

This week, we're sharing a special episode courtesy of 'Dev Interrupted.' Our co-host, Galileo CEO Vikram Chatterji, recently joined theDev Interrupted team for an engaging discussion on AI strategy. We were so impressed by the conversation that we wanted to share it with our audience, and they were kind enough to let us. We hope you enjoy it!

From Dev Interrupted:

"Vikram Chatterji joins Dev Interrupted’s Andrew Zigler to discuss how engineering leaders can future-proof their AI strategy and navigate an emerging dilemma: the pressure to adopt AI to stay competitive, while justifying AI spending and avoiding risky investments.

To accomplish this, Vikram emphasizes the importance of establishing clear evaluation frameworks, prioritizing AI use cases based on business needs and understanding your company's unique cultural context when deploying AI."

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction and Special Announcement

01:14 Welcome to Dev Interrupted

01:42 Challenges in AI Adoption

03:16 Balancing Business Needs and AI

06:15 Crawl, Walk, Run Approach

10:52 Building Trust and Prototyping

13:07 AI Agents as Smart Routers

13:50 Galileo's Role in AI Development

16:25 Evaluating AI Systems

25:36 Skills for Engineering Leaders

27:35 Conclusion