AI agent revolution

72 hours of conference in 3 min

Author

Aaron Samuel
June 29, 2025


Hey clever people,

Just wrapped 72+ hours immersed in AI agent conferences, & the future is clearer than ever. Here's what you need to know right now.

 Where AI Agents Are Headed

  • Big Tech is All In: Google alone is agentifying 15+ products, and other giants are racing to follow.

  • Startups, Look Here: YC recommends focusing on vertical AI agents and tools deeply tailored to specific industries.

  • Why Now: Just like the third wave of SaaS birthed billion-dollar companies like Gusto, the vertical AI agent wave is poised to be even bigger because agents replace software and people.

Must-Have Skills for Agent Builders

1. Prompt Engineering

  • Critical for autonomy: Agents run on one prompt, so clarity and flexibility must coexist.

  • Use a 6-part framework: role, task, input, output, constraints, & reminders.

2. Writing Evals

  • Evals is how you know your agent’s working (or not).

  • Categories include task success, planning quality, tool use, robustness, and latency.

  • Most companies guard their evals like trade secrets; they're that important.

Becoming an Agent Engineer

Harrison Chase (LangChain CEO) believes a new role is emerging: Agent Engineer. Think:

  • Prompting (language model interaction)

  • Engineering (system reliability)

  • Product (domain insight)

  • Machine learning (data & eval fluency)

Your 5-Step Agent-Building Blueprint 

  1. Observe existing workflows closely

  2. Break down each step methodically

  3. Map the decision points and logic

  4. Prototype with real constraints

  5. Evaluate relentlessly with data

What's Coming Next 

Voice Agents: Massive untapped UX opportunity. Everyone's building a chat and a few are nailing their voices.

Industry Specialization: Generic agents will lose to hyper-focused vertical solutions.

Coding Skills: Even basic scripting separates good agent builders from great ones.

The agent revolution isn't coming; it's here. The question isn't whether to build agents but which vertical you'll dominate.

If you like this newsletter, forward it to your friend.

- Aaron & The Clever Nest Team