Agents of Dev - AI, Agent & Agentic Development

We are pouring $8 trillion into AI data centers, but history reveals a brutal truth: the companies building the physical infrastructure almost never capture the lasting wealth.
In this episode of Agents of Dev, hosts Mitch Ashley and Brad Shimmin sit down with tech founder and bestselling author Alan Shimel to break down his book, The Indispensability Trap.
Comparing today’s AI frenzy to the massive historical build-outs of the railroads, electrification, telecom monopolies, and the dot-com dark fiber bust, Alan explains how Jevons Paradox forces value to flee the infrastructure layer and migrate "up the stack."
The trio also tackles whether software engineers are facing obsolescence or evolution, how "vibe coding" changes development, and why AI search threatens the core business model of online media.
Check out Alan Shimel's book, The Indispensability Trap. available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.
This and more on Agents of Dev, part of the Futurum Media Podcast Network. 

Email your questions and topics to the podcast here. 
As AI agents move from experimental prompts to autonomous production workflows, developers are facing a brand-new set of infrastructure, governance, and safety challenges.
In this episode of Agents of Dev, Mitch Ashley and Brad Shimmin break down takeaways from Microsoft FabCon in Barcelona, highlighting the rise of autonomous database management agents and the industry-wide shift toward lightweight agent sandboxing.
The duo dives deep into Google’s Argon 4 release—evaluating its bold trade-off of raw benchmark scores to slash hallucination rates down to 15%—and unpack OpenAI’s Dev Days updates like ChatGPT Space and Dots. Finally, in "The Drop," Mitch explores NVIDIA’s hardware-enforced Open Agent Safety Platform, while Brad shares his hands-on testing with Jev, a ultra-fast "System 1" decisioning model redefining task routing.
This and more on Agents of Dev, part of The Futurum Media Podcast Network.

Email your questions and topics to the podcast here. 
Are bloated frontier models already becoming obsolete for everyday enterprise workflows?
In this episode of Agents of Dev, Mitch Ashley and Brad Shimmin break down fresh takeaways straight off the plane from Salesforce Dreamforce and the Neo4J Graph Summit.
They dive into Salesforce’s new COA model and headless architecture, how graph databases provide the critical "meaning, reach, and memory" needed for agentic AI, recent security headlines surrounding AI-assisted breaches, and why ultra-focused state decision models like JEV might change the economics of AI forever.
This and more on Agents of Dev, part of The Futurum Podcast Network.

Email your questions and topics to the podcast here. 
Is the fear of world-ending AGI a genuine existential threat, or just aggressive marketing designed to protect a massive AI investment bubble?
In this episode of Agents of Dev, Mitch Ashley and Brad Shimmin cut through the industry noise to examine how software development is actually evolving on the ground.
They unpack key market moves from Cloudera’s partnership with Mistral to Atlassian’s agentic workflow ecosystem, before diving into a technical breakdown of developer harnesses like Pi and Maki.
From managing token economics and context bloat to tackling AI’s "Memento-like" short-term memory struggles, Mitch and Brad share practical insights on how developers can maintain control over their AI toolchains.
This and more on Agents of Dev, part of The Futurum Podcast Network.

Is AI heading toward a dystopian sci-fi nightmare, or are we just watching market hype mask the real architectural shifts happening in software engineering?
In this episode of Agents of Dev, Mitch Ashley and Brad Shimmin move past the polarities of AI doomerism vs. pure hype to tackle the pragmatic reality of agentic workflows.
They analyze Cloudera’s enterprise sovereignty partnership with Mistral, examine Atlassian’s push into agentic SDLC management, and take a deep dive into the world of developer harnesses—comparing setups like Pi, Aider, and Maki. Along the way, they unpack context tokenomics, cash ownership, and why managing LLM memory often feels like living out the movie Memento.
This and more on Agents of Dev, part of The Futurum Podcast Network.

Email your questions and topics to the podcast here. 
Are enterprise AI budgets running out of control while agentic models pretend to finish tasks they haven't actually completed?
In this episode of Agents of Dev, Mitch Ashley and Brad Shimmin tackle the biggest developments across cloud infrastructure, AI behavior engineering, and enterprise data strategy.
They start with AWS’s acquisition of Duck Labs and what embedding DuckDB directly into storage tiers means for the open-source ecosystem. Next, they unpack the issue of AI "phantom completeness" and how new tools like the Unlazy extension enforce behavioral discipline on agents.
The pair also analyze Brad’s newly published Data Intelligence Platforms Signal report, break down Bill Gates’ 6,000-word call for AI guardrails and job protections, and discuss the "fund AI anyway" spending habits shaping IT budgets in 2026.
This and more on Agents of Dev, part of The Futurum Podcast Network.

Unvetted AI code generation in your software pipeline is like handing a construction apprentice the keys to a wrecking crane—it might get the job done, but it could just as easily knock down the entire building.
In this episode of Agents of Dev, Mitch Ashley and Brad Shimmin sit down with open source pioneer Tracy Ragan (CEO of DeployHub and Ortilius community leader) to dissect the state of the modern software supply chain.
Tracy breaks down why hardcoded scripts continue to paralyze DevOps evolution, how global vulnerability collection laws are reshaping cybersecurity risk, and why "reachability" matters more than static SBOM scans.
Together, the team explores the inevitable shift from bloated frontier models to lean, domain-specific small language models, proving why human collaboration still forms the ultimate zero-trust defense.
This and more on Agents of Dev, part of The Futurum Group Podcast Network.

Are constantly shifting AI models and phantom fixes driving you to throw away hours of work?
In this episode of Agents of Dev, Mitch Ashley and Brad Shimmin dive into the real-world frustrations of developer toolchain chaos, model instability, and aggressive pricing shifts in the race for AI dominance. Brad highlights Oracle’s new APEX AI Application Generator and APEX Lang framework, while Mitch breaks down Dynatrace’s acquisition of Arise and why observability must anchor itself at the intent stage.
Together, they demystify what actually defines a developer sandbox, test-drive Unsloth’s new agentic desktop harness, and examine Atlassian’s Code Context updates—offering a much-needed dose of tech therapy for software builders navigating today's rapid model churn.
This and more on Agents of Dev, part of The Futurum Group Podcast Network.

Email your questions and topics to the podcast here. 
As AI moves deeper into software development, keeping up with rapid updates can feel like chasing a moving target.
In this episode of Agents of Dev, hosts Mitch Ashley and Brad Shimmin break down the biggest shifts transforming the developer ecosystem. Brad explores AWS's new native vector support for DynamoDB and explains why placing vectors inside operational databases slashes latency and infrastructure costs.
Mitch shares top takeaways from Black Hat, focusing on "Shift Zero"—the practice of governing developer intent at the point of origin rather than catching errors downstream. Finally, the duo discusses prompt fatigue, non-deterministic pipelines, and how tools like Tencent's DB Agent Memory might help systems clean up their own technical debt.
This and more on Agents of Dev, part of The Futurum Group Podcast Network.

Email your questions and topics to the podcast here. 
Are your AI agents creating more technical debt than they actually solve?
In this episode of Agents of Dev, hosts Mitch Ashley and Brad Shimmin break down the fast-moving world of modern AI development, starting with AWS DynamoDB adding native vector support to optimize query latency.
They dig into Black Hat insights like "Shift Zero" intent governance, why Anthropic is telling developers to strip down their prompt instructions, and how human alarm fatigue makes reviewing agent tool calls almost pointless.
Finally, they wrap up with "The Drop," highlighting Tencent's graph-based agent memory hub and exploring how sci-fi clones from Dune mirror the current state of AI memory.
This and more on Agents of Dev, part of The Futurum Group Podcast Network.