The TWIML AI Podcast (formerly This Week in Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence) cover image

The TWIML AI Podcast (formerly This Week in Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence)

The Building Blocks of Agentic Systems with Harrison Chase - #698

Aug 19, 2024
Harrison Chase, co-founder and CEO of LangChain, shares insights from his extensive background in machine learning and MLOps. He discusses the evolution of agentic systems, emphasizing their real-world applications and communication needs. Harrison delves into Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and the importance of observability tools for enhancing agent development. He also highlights the challenges of transitioning prototypes to production and offers his hot takes on prompting and multi-modal models, providing a glimpse into the future of LLM applications.
59:17

Episode guests

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

  • Harrison Chase discusses the evolution of LangChain from an orchestration middleware framework to a comprehensive suite including LangSmith and LangGraph for enhanced agent-based applications.
  • The podcast highlights the significance of RAG techniques in enriching LLM responses by integrating external knowledge, especially beneficial in customer support scenarios.

Deep dives

Background and Rise of Langchain

The co-founder and CEO of Langchain, Harrison Chase, shares his journey in the machine learning field, highlighting his experience in MLOps and machine learning teams in fintech. His exploration into the world of language models began around the time Stable Diffusion was released. Recognizing patterns in projects built on OpenAI APIs, Chase aimed to abstract these patterns into a Python package, leading to the creation and launch of Langchain shortly before ChatGPT gained popularity. The framework has since rapidly grown, featuring over 15 million monthly downloads, in addition to a thriving community contributing to a network of integrations with numerous LLM and vector store providers.

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