Agents versus skills: build the skill

This week, we discuss how normal people use AI, Alphabet's Anthropic-fueled earnings, and skills vs. agents. Plus, catching AI-cheating students with a hidden prompt.

Watch the YouTube Live Recording of Episode 583

Runner-up Titles

• “Do you think they named them red delicious because they knew they were delicious?”
• I thought they were First World
• Steal your Alpha-tier
• Cory uses only 100% free-range, organic AI.
• Copy, paste, go.
• Stolen fruit from the poisoned tree all the way down.
• It’s a different kind of cold. It’s a dry cold.

Rundown

• AI IRL
  • How people use AI in 2026: TV, homework, the DMV
  • Professor's invisible prompt trap catches 32 students cheating on their midterm with AI
• Amazon confirms it’s closing key AI site in San Francisco but says work on its top models continues
• Google Cloud is killing it
• Skill vs. Agents
  • Atlas: Wiz's autonomous AI Agent for vulnerability research
  • Don't Build Agents, Build Skills Instead

Relevant to your Interests

• Alphabet Quadruples Profit to $112 Billion, Fueled by A.I. Investments
• Palo Alto Networks to Acquire Embrace, Adding Real User Monitoring to Its Observability Platform
• IBM CEO Says Company Culture Was Too Slow to Change
• Domo Announces Agreement to Sell Substantially All Assets and Certain Liabilities to Progress Software for $400 Million
• Google Cloud is killing it
• ChatGPT chats are showing up in Google Search — how to find and delete yours [Update]
• 2026 State of infrastructure in the agentic AI era
• Stripe in Talks to Buy Buzzy AI-Model Marketplace OpenRouter

Sponsors

• Signadot: making sure AI-written code actually works.

Conferences

• AI Connect, Aug 22nd, 2026 - Riga, Latvia, Coté speaking.
• DevOpsDays Graz, Sept 4-5, 2026
• Cloud Foundry Summit, Sept. 21st to 22nd, Heidelberg, Coté speaking.
• DevOpsDays Rockies, Sept. 22 – 23, 2026, Discount Code: 26DODSWEDEFTALK
• WeAreDevelopers NA, Sept 23-25, 2026, Discount Code: DEVPOD26
  • 25 Free Tickets
• DevOpsDays Dallas, Sept 28-29, 2026
• DevOpsDays Vilnius, Sep 30 - Oct 1, 2006
• DevOpsDays Istanbul, Oct 24th, 2026, Coté keynoting.
• VMware User Group, Orlando, Oct 20-22, 2026
• Cloud Native Denmark, Nov 19th, 2026, Copenhagen, Coté keynoting.

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Recommendations

• Brandon: Silo Season 3
• Matt: Hyperion
• Coté: Cooking with Claude

Sponsored By:

• Signadot: AI writes code. Signadot make sure it works.