Is There an Agent Bubble? | Spot AI’s Kelly Vaughn
03/19/25 • 35 min
Is the agentic AI bubble about to burst? Kelly Vaughn, Director of Engineering at Spot AI, questions whether the agent craze is overpromising potential and leading startups down a path of unsustainable expectations.
Never one to shy away from a hot take, Kelly joins host Conor Bronsdon for a pragmatic look at AI, discussing the differences between building AI-enabled and traditional software, why replacing humans with AI teams will backfire (looking at you customer service), and the proliferation of AI tools.
Kelly also shares insights on constructing AI teams, navigating data governance, and building user trust while avoiding common startup pitfalls.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
01:13 Is Agentic AI a Bubble?
02:40 Startup Challenges and Market Noise
11:02 Building AI Products vs. Traditional Software
17:31 Ethical Implications and Governance
19:48 Constructing AI-Enabled Teams
22:07 AI Tooling and Productivity
26:00 Questioning Productivity Claims
32:28 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
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Kelly’s Newsletter The Modern Leader
LinkedIn Kelly Vaughn
Check out Galileo
Is the agentic AI bubble about to burst? Kelly Vaughn, Director of Engineering at Spot AI, questions whether the agent craze is overpromising potential and leading startups down a path of unsustainable expectations.
Never one to shy away from a hot take, Kelly joins host Conor Bronsdon for a pragmatic look at AI, discussing the differences between building AI-enabled and traditional software, why replacing humans with AI teams will backfire (looking at you customer service), and the proliferation of AI tools.
Kelly also shares insights on constructing AI teams, navigating data governance, and building user trust while avoiding common startup pitfalls.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
01:13 Is Agentic AI a Bubble?
02:40 Startup Challenges and Market Noise
11:02 Building AI Products vs. Traditional Software
17:31 Ethical Implications and Governance
19:48 Constructing AI-Enabled Teams
22:07 AI Tooling and Productivity
26:00 Questioning Productivity Claims
32:28 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Follow the hosts
Follow Atin
Follow Conor
Follow Vikram
Follow Yash
Follow Today's Guest(s)
Kelly’s Newsletter The Modern Leader
LinkedIn Kelly Vaughn
Check out Galileo
Previous Episode
Using AI to Modernize Your Legacy Applications | MongoDB’s Rachelle Palmer
Imagine cutting your legacy code modernization timeline from years to months. It’s no longer science fiction and this week’s guest is here to tell us how.
Rachelle Palmer, Director of Product Management at MongoDB, joins hosts Conor Bronsdon and Atindriyo Sanyal, for a discussion on the groundbreaking ways AI is modernizing legacy applications.
At MongoDB, Rachelle's forward-deployed AI engineering team is tackling the challenge of transforming complex, outdated codebases, freeing developers from technical debt. She details how LLMs are automating tasks like improving documentation, test generation, and even business logic conversion, dramatically reducing modernization timelines from years to months. What once demanded teams of dozens can now be achieved with a small, highly efficient team.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction and Host Welcome
00:58 Challenges in Modernizing Legacy Applications
02:52 Real-World Examples of Code Modernization
04:00 The Role of LLMs in Code Modernization
08:01 Measuring Success in AI-Powered Modernization
12:28 The Future of AI in Engineering
16:17 Evaluating Modernization Success
21:12 Returning to Your Startup Roots
29:07 Forward Deployed AI Engineers
35:36 Importance of Academic Research in AI
42:10 Conclusion and Farewell
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Rachelle PalmerMongoDBApplication Modernization Factory
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Next Episode
What is Information Symmetry and Will AI Unlock it? | DevRev’s Manoj Agarwal
What if everyone in your organization had equal information at all times? Would meetings even exist?
This week, we dive into the concept of information symmetry with Manoj Agarwal, co-founder and president of DevRev. Manoj, along with hosts Conor Bronsdon and Yash Sheth, explores how DevRev is connecting data, personalizing schemas, and automating complex tasks, offering a glimpse into the next generation of AI-driven workflows. This is revolutionizing enterprise data and decision-making by breaking down the silos that create information asymmetry.
Learn how AI is reshaping business outcomes and collaboration, moving us closer to a world where everyone has the information they need.
Chapters:
00:00 Welcome to Chain of Thought
00:57 Information Symmetry in Enterprises
02:03 Challenges of Decision Making
03:41 Recency Bias and Product Management
04:58 Data Silos and Information Waste
05:23 Structured vs. Unstructured Data
06:04 Collaboration and Data Retrieval Issues
08:17 DevRev's Approach to AI and Data Integration
09:23 Building a Business-Centric Knowledge Graph
10:00 Conversational AI and Automation
12:57 Agentic Interactions and Skills Programming
20:05 Multi-Agent Systems and Future Vision
21:25 Challenges in Multi-Agent Communication
25:10 Data Cleanliness and Governance
28:14 Trust and Reliability in AI Systems
36:58 Conclusion and Future Outlook
Follow the hosts
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LinkedIn Manoj Agarwal
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