Agent to Agent: Google’s ADK and the new frontier of AI
Download MP3On this Michael Jordan episode (23!), we kick things off with a classic tale of a "five-minute" project gone wrong. Bradley shares his ambitious attempt at a parking lot car battery replacement that quickly turned into a 30-minute fishing expedition for a single lost part. Meanwhile, Bennett recounts a white-knuckle flight experience made even more stressful by a massive, internet-wide outage. What happens when the Google Cloud services that underpin everything suddenly go dark right before your flight? We dive into the chaos, what caused it, and what it reveals about our dependency on just a handful of tech giants.
That tech meltdown is the perfect launchpad for our main event: getting our hands dirty building with the latest AI. Bennett gives his firsthand review of Google's new Agent Development Kit (ADK), comparing its simplicity to the granular control of LangGraph. We explore the frontiers of multi-agent workflows and the tricky art of getting them to actually talk to each other. Then, Brad details his journey of building a custom MCP server from scratch and reveals how he’s squeezed over $1,400 of value from his AI coding assistant this month alone. With tools this powerful, we have to ask the big question: Is the era of traditional SaaS over? Tune in to hear our take on the future of custom software and what it truly means to be a builder in the age of AI.
Links:
- Bradley's Telescope MCP Server
- LangChain's Interrupt Conference Videos
- Claude Code's MCP servers
- ONCE by 37signals
- Levels.fyi Tweet about Cursor outage
- Apple's "The Illusion of Thinking in LLMs" Paper
That tech meltdown is the perfect launchpad for our main event: getting our hands dirty building with the latest AI. Bennett gives his firsthand review of Google's new Agent Development Kit (ADK), comparing its simplicity to the granular control of LangGraph. We explore the frontiers of multi-agent workflows and the tricky art of getting them to actually talk to each other. Then, Brad details his journey of building a custom MCP server from scratch and reveals how he’s squeezed over $1,400 of value from his AI coding assistant this month alone. With tools this powerful, we have to ask the big question: Is the era of traditional SaaS over? Tune in to hear our take on the future of custom software and what it truly means to be a builder in the age of AI.
- (00:00) - Introductions & updates
- (03:00) - Flying Fears and Internet Outages
- (05:52) - AI Model Releases and Developments
- (08:43) - Exploring Google ADK and Agent Development
- (11:36) - MCPs and Their Role in AI Agents
- (14:41) - Multi-Agent Frameworks and Structures
- (24:49) - Navigating Agent Handoffs and Protocols
- (29:23) - Challenges with OAuth and Authentication
- (34:44) - Comparing Google ADK and LangGraph
- (42:19) - Building an MCP Server for Laravel Telescope
- (47:29) - The Future of Natural Language Interaction
- (51:51) - Cost Analysis of Using Cloud Code
- (53:13) - The Rise of AI Tools in Development
- (55:44) - The Future of SaaS: Cloning vs. Custom Solutions
- (58:54) - The Shift from Subscription to One-Time Payments
- (01:04:19) - The Evolution of AI Workflows and Automation
- (01:08:04) - The Importance of Building vs. Consuming AI Tools
- (01:12:18) - Navigating Complex AI Tasks and Future Interactions
Links:
- Bradley's Telescope MCP Server
- LangChain's Interrupt Conference Videos
- Claude Code's MCP servers
- ONCE by 37signals
- Levels.fyi Tweet about Cursor outage
- Apple's "The Illusion of Thinking in LLMs" Paper
#AI #SoftwareDevelopment #GoogleADK #LangGraph #ClaudeAI #TechPodcast #DeveloperLife #SaaS #Laravel #AgenticAI
Creators and Guests
Host
Bennett Bernard
Mortgage Accounting & Finance at Zillow. Tweets about Mortgage Banking and random thoughts. My views are my own and have not been reviewed/approved by Zillow
Host
Bradley Bernard
Coder, builder, mobile app developer, & aspiring creator. Software Engineer at @Snap working on the iOS app. Views expressed are my own.
