Ep. 276 Model Context Protocol, Agentic AI, and the Future of Federal Software Integration

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Many listeners have become so familiar with AI that they may have assumed it has been around for decades. Today, we sat down with Will Angel from Excella to explore the application of AI to federal technology from a more nuanced perspective.

We dive into three main aspects of AI: challenges of integrating AI services, Model Context Protocol, and security considerations with agentic systems.

Challenges:

No company has grown as fast as ChatGPT; in fact, it is the fastest-adopted consumer application in history. Today, it has an estimated eight hundred million weekly users. This has attracted developers who work on federal projects.

Wil Angel recommends careful consideration of people arbitrarily porting data to or from products like ChatGPT because it can compromise data security.

MCP

In certain circles, the term "Model Context Protocol" is used constantly. It has become so popular that people do not realize it was just coined by Anthropic in November of 2024. During the interview, Angel presents variations on MCP for software development and warns about the hype surrounding the relatively new standard for AI systems.

Agentic AI

Autonomous systems have been the holy grail for every software developer. The promise of Agentic AI is so powerful that some have jumped into applications without a more prudent approach.

When a series of tasks is assembled, unintended consequences can come into play. It is one thing in the commercial world to reveal essential data; it is a completely different situation when the DoD is dealing with life and death situations.

Angel predicts significant changes in AI over the next few years, with large language models revolutionizing software systems.