• S7E9: Using AI Agents and Models Effectively feat. Derek Egan

  • Jan 9 2025
  • Length: 26 mins
  • Podcast

S7E9: Using AI Agents and Models Effectively feat. Derek Egan

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  • We continue our series of conversations about Artificial Intelligence and how it's changing the world around us. In today’s episode, Frances talks to an AI engineer at Google about the ins and outs of the newest crop of AI models and agents.Joining the show to give an insider’s perspective is Derek Egan. Derek is on the Vertex AI team at Google Cloud where he works on helping developers build generative AI-powered agents for their own applications. Derek is also a graduate of the David Eccles School of Business with a degree in Operations Management. David and Frances discuss the difference between models and agents, and why humans are still very much integral to the process. They address the strengths and weaknesses of these types of systems and the ways in which they might be used by organizations most effectively to help them work more efficiently. Derek speaks to the realistic worries of some AI critics and gives some of his own real-life examples of how AI agents help streamline his work life and personal life. Eccles Business Buzz is a production of the David Eccles School of Business and is produced by University fm.Show Links:Derek Egan | LinkedInVertex AI | Google CloudMaster of Science in Business Analytics - The David Eccles School of BusinessDavid Eccles School of Business (@ubusiness) • InstagramEccles Alumni Network (@ecclesalumni) • Instagram Eccles Experience MagazineEpisode Quotes:Google Cloud invests in explainable AI and safety filters to build AI that benefits everyone[09:06] How can we build AI that's beneficial for all is a critical question. At Google Cloud, we take that really seriously for responsible AI. It all starts with a set of AI principles that translates into multiple things in practice as we build these products and up front and not as an afterthought. A few examples of that are ethical reviews. So, internally, there are dedicated teams that essentially conduct ethical analysis and risk assessments for any new product that's going to launch and their job is to identify potential biases. [09:57] We haven't been perfect here and no one has been perfect here because it's a process and we're all learning. And that's also why, as we gain learnings and learn how to interact with these models and how to control the types of responses, we're also building explainability into the models themselves. That's really important. AI will not take away your job but someone who uses it better might. 18:35 If I'm a student at the University of Utah right now in the David Eccles School of Business or an alumni, I would be pretty anxious about this, right? Like, hey, how does AI impact my job? What I would encourage people though, is to think about reframing that question. And the way I reframe it is I don't think AI is going to replace your job, and I don't think you're competing directly with AI for your job. I do think you're going to compete with other people who can competently use AI to do your job and that will lead to disruption. That will lead to a change in the way that works done, day in and day out. So, my guidance, my invitation would be to try it out, embrace AI and start using it. See how it can make you more productive. See how it can take the nitty gritty tasks off of your plate and help you to automate them on your behalf.Derek shares a developer's guide for building AI applications.32:39 If you are a developer and you want to build an application, my guidance would be to identify something that's fairly low hanging fruit, fairly simple, where you're going to get started. And where it's going to be an interaction between the person and the agent and not something that's going to go run autonomously and not have the right feedback loop. And then you can measure and get a sense for how helpful is that agent, and then iterate on it. And I'd encourage you to check out some of the use cases. We have like 185 customer use cases on a blog post published from Google Cloud. But there's a bunch of examples out there and there's a bunch of documentation that we offer as well to help people get started.
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