Navigating AI Engineering: Emerging as a Distinct Discipline in 2025

As AI engineering continues to evolve, I'll share my insights on the state of the industry, from the rise of agent-based frameworks to the challenges and opportunities emerging in 2025.

1. The speaker is discussing the current state of AI engineering.
2. They mention that there are different perspectives on what AI engineering entails, with some viewing it as primarily machine learning plus a few prompts, while others see it as mostly software engi
3. The speaker believes that AI engineering will emerge as its own discipline over time, and that this year will see the start of its spread.
4. They mention an O'Reilly book on AI engineering and a friend, Chip, who is giving a keynote at the workshops session.
5. According to Gartner, AI engineering has hit its peak and is expected to decline.
6. The speaker aims to mark the state of the art or industry in their talks at each conference.
7. They previously discussed the rise of the AI engineer, the three types of AI engineers, and the maturing and spreading discipline at past events.
8. The speaker mentions resistance from both sides of the AI engineering spectrum, with some viewing it as mostly machine learning and others seeing it as primarily software engineering.
9. They believe that AI engineering will grow to be more than 10% AI and 90% software engineering in the future.
10. The speaker discusses how people describe themselves, form groups, and create industries, using ML and AI as examples.
11. They mention that the AI Engineer Summit has pivoted to become the Agent Engineering Conference.
12. This decision was not made lightly, but rather because it allows for a focus on agent engineering disciplines.
13. Last year's top talks on YouTube featured agentic things, and this year's speakers have been instructed not to give vendor pitches.
14. The speaker mentions that agents combined with other technologies can make money in 2025.
15. They are skeptical about the claim that 2025 is the year of Agents, but believe that agent technology has potential.
16. The speaker invokes Simon Willison, who crowdsourced 300 definitions of an agent.
17. Different perspectives on what constitutes an agent include having goals, using tools, controlling flow, running long processes, delegating authority, and completing small multi-step tasks.
18. OpenAI released a new definition of agents on the live stream, which is worth paying attention to.
19. The speaker believes that agents are working now because capabilities have been growing and hitting human baselines.
20. Model diversity has also increased, with two Frontier Model Labs emerging as potential challenges to OpenAI.
21. The cost of intelligence has decreased 1,000 times in the last 18 months.
22. Faster inference and multi-agent work are being developed due to better hardware.
23. Agent use cases include building effective agents for coding and support, with potential for growth in areas such as anti-use cases like flight booking agents.
24. OpenAI has reported 400 million users, a 33% growth from three months ago, while ChatGPT has grown to 400 million users in two and a half years.

Source: AI Engineer via YouTube

❓ What do you think? What are your thoughts on the ideas shared in this video? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!