Rob Zuber Presentation – Back to the Code Why CTOs Must Get Technical Again to Solve AI’s Real Pro

This talk addresses the prevalent issue of AI implementations failing due to outdated approaches, including the reliance on monolithic prompts that complicate debugging and management. The speaker emphasizes the necessity for technical leaders to maintain close ties to the code to effectively navigate the challenges AI poses to existing systems. By sharing insights from CircleCI’s experience with agent decomposition, the session reveals how the team successfully transformed unreliable workflows into composable and maintainable structures. Attendees will gain a practical framework for designing modular AI agents and learn valuable lessons from scaling AI initiatives beyond initial proof-of-concept stages.