<p><em>We’re really moving from a world where humans are </em><strong><em>authoring search queries</em></strong><em> and humans are </em><strong><em>executing those queries</em></strong><em> and humans are </em><strong><em>digesting the results</em></strong><em> to </em><strong><em>a world where AI is doing that for us</em></strong>.</p><p><strong>Jeff Huber</strong>, <strong>CEO</strong> and <strong>co-founder</strong> of <strong>Chroma</strong>, joins Hugo to talk about how <strong>agentic search</strong> and <strong>retrieval are</strong> changing the very nature of search and software for builders and users alike.</p><p><strong>We Discuss:</strong></p><p>* <strong>“Context engineering”</strong>, the strategic design and engineering of what context gets fed to the LLM (data, tools, memory, and more), which is now essential for building reliable, agentic AI systems;</p><p>* Why simply stuffing large context windows is no longer feasible due to <strong>“context rot”</strong> as AI applications become more goal-oriented and capable of multi-step tasks</p><p>* A framework for precisely curating and providing only the most <strong>relevant</strong>, h<strong>igh-precision information</strong> to ensure <strong>accurate</strong> and <strong>dependable AI systems;</strong></p><p>* The <strong>“agent harness”</strong>, the collection of tools and capabilities an agent can access, and how to construct these advanced systems;</p><p>* <strong>Emerging best practices</strong> for builders, including hybrid search as a robust default, creating “golden datasets” for evaluation, and leveraging sub-agents to break down complex tasks</p><p>* The major unsolved challenge of <strong>agent evaluation</strong>, emphasizing a shift towards iterative, data-centric approaches.</p><p>You can also find the full episode on <a target="_blank" href="https://open.spotify.com/show/3yuz89gqAhcMcdy3SZPe4X?si=AKl2jvIARD2Liw1bBH2Nng&#38;nd=1&#38;dlsi=e91c7411f20b48fb">Spotify</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vanishing-gradients/id1610318868">Apple Podcasts</a>, and <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/l9V1IN8mQIg">YouTube</a>.</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/32983a67-1602-4e3f-be20-2ca2863978f7">You can also interact directly with the transcript here in NotebookLM</a>: If you do so, let us know anything you find in the comments!</p><p>👉 <strong><em>Want to learn more about Building AI-Powered Software? Check out our </em></strong><a target="_blank" href="https://maven.com/hugo-stefan/building-ai-apps-ds-and-swe-from-first-principles?promoCode=ss-rav"><strong><em>Building AI Applications course</em></strong></a>. It’s a live cohort with hands on exercises and office hours. <strong>Our final cohort is in Q1, 2206</strong>. Here is a <a target="_blank" href="https://maven.com/hugo-stefan/building-ai-apps-ds-and-swe-from-first-principles?promoCode=vgch">35% discount code</a> for readers. 👈</p><p><em>Oh!</em> One more thing: we’ve just announced a Vanishing Gradients livestream for January 21 that you may dig:</p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://luma.com/6os4cy5g"><strong><em>A Builder’s Guide to Agentic Search & Retrieval with Doug Turnbull and John Berryman</em></strong></a> (register to join live or get the recording afterwards.</p><p>Show notes</p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/jeffreyhuber">Jeff Huber on Twitter</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffchuber/">Jeff Huber on LinkedIn</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.trychroma.com/">Try Chroma</a>!</p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://research.trychroma.com/context-rot">Context Rot: How Increasing Input Tokens Impacts LLM Performance</a> by The Chroma Team</p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://hugobowne.substack.com/p/ai-agent-harness-3-principles-for">AI Agent Harness, 3 Principles for Context Engineering, and the Bitter Lesson Revisited</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://high-signal.delphina.ai/episode/context-engineering-to-ai-agent-harnesses-the-new-software-discipline">From Context Engineering to AI Agent Harnesses: The New Software Discipline</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://research.trychroma.com/generative-benchmarking">Generative Benchmarking</a> by The Chroma Team</p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/effective-context-engineering-for-ai-agents">Effective context engineering for AI agents</a> by The Anthropic Team</p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://hugobowne.substack.com/p/making-sense-of-millions-of-conversations">Making Sense of Millions of Conversations for AI Agents</a> by Ivan Leo (Manus) and Hugo</p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/multi-agent-research-system">How we built our multi-agent research system</a> by The Anthropic Team</p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://lu.ma/calendar/cal-8ImWFDQ3IEIxNWk">Upcoming Events on Luma</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/l9V1IN8mQIg">Watch the podcast video on YouTube</a></p><p></p><p>👉 <strong><em>Want to learn more about Building AI-Powered Software? Check out our </em></strong><a target="_blank" href="https://maven.com/hugo-stefan/building-ai-apps-ds-and-swe-from-first-principles?promoCode=ss-rav"><strong><em>Building AI Applications course</em></strong></a>. It’s a live cohort with hands on exercises and office hours. <strong>Our final cohort is in Q1, 2206</strong>. Here is a <a target="_blank" href="https://maven.com/hugo-stefan/building-ai-apps-ds-and-swe-from-first-principles?promoCode=vgch">35% discount code</a> for readers. 👈</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://maven.com/hugo-stefan/building-ai-apps-ds-and-swe-from-first-principles?promoCode=vgch">https://maven.com/hugo-stefan/building-ai-apps-ds-and-swe-from-first-principles?promoCode=vgch</a></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://hugobowne.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1">hugobowne.substack.com</a>