Andrew Hamilton, Co-founder and CTO of Layer, unveils the shift towards AI agents as consumers of products. He emphasizes the need for product designers to rethink experiences for this new user base. Discussions cover the emergence of an 'app store for LLMs' and the Model Context Protocol's role in enhancing AI interactions. Andrew shares insights on identifying MCP candidates and the significance of experimentation in the rapidly evolving landscape. Tune in to explore the transformative potential of AI in software development!
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insights INSIGHT
MCP’s Transformative Product Impact
MCP transforms product consumption by enabling LLMs to plug and play custom software with client applications.
Successful MCP servers focus on iterative workflows, not just direct API mappings, enriching user-agent interaction.
insights INSIGHT
Agent Experience vs Developer Experience
Agent experience differs greatly from traditional developer experience due to LLM autonomy limits.
Agents execute constrained workflows between full developer autonomy and rigid robotic process automation.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Actively Experiment with AI Agents
Avoid delaying AI agent integration; doing nothing forfeits competitive advantage.
Encourage experimentation with MCP and agent workflows for innovation and strategic benefit.
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If you're still building products only for humans, you're already missing out on a massive new customer base: AI agents.
Joining Dev Interrupted is Andrew Hamilton, co-founder and CTO of Layer (a first-of-it’s kind MCP agency) to unravel this monumental shift in how products will be discovered and consumed. He dives into how AI agents are rapidly evolving from developer tools to direct consumers of APIs and products, with new standards like the MCP spearheading this transformation by effectively creating an "app store for LLMs." This evolution demands a complete rethink of product design, packaging, and user experience for an entirely new kind of user.
Andrew educates us about how successfully leveraging MCP isn't about a simple one-to-one API mapping, but about thoughtfully designing an "agent experience" based on key user workflows and providing pre-packaged capabilities. He shares insights on identifying good MCP candidates, the importance of experimentation in this fast-moving space, and how tools like Layer are defining the frontier of agent-accessible tooling.
Dev Interrupted