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AI is evolving fast, and so are the ways developers can integrate it into tech systems. A flurry of new approaches and tools surfaces every week, and it’s hard to know where to focus.

In this session, we will pull back the curtain on the next wave of AI development with agents, tool integrations, and Model Context Protocol (MCP). We will break down what AI agents are, how they interact with tools and APIs, and why context is critical for building smarter, more reliable applications. Next, we will look at MCP and how it standardizes communication between AI models and external systems.

Along the way, we will touch on related concepts and step through code and demos, giving you a complete roadmap to level up your AI skills. You won’t need a yellow brick road to follow along, but you will discover some magical new tricks to level up your AI skills!

Jennifer Reif is a Developer Advocate at Neo4j, speaker, and blogger with an MS in CMIS. An avid developer and problem-solver, she has worked with many businesses and projects to organize and make sense of widespread data assets and leverage them for maximum business value. She has expertise in a variety of commercial and open source tools, and she enjoys learning new technologies, sometimes on a daily basis! Her passion is finding ways to organize chaos and deliver software more effectively.