
14 segments available
In this episode of AI + a16z, Resend founder and CEO Zeno Rocha sits down with a16z partner Yoko Li to discuss: - How generative AI — powered by agents and, now, MCP — is reshaping the email experience for developers, as well as the overall world of programming. - Zeno's obsession with developer experience has evolved into designing for "agent experience" — a new frontier where LLM-powered agents are not only building products but also operating within them. - How email, one of the most ubiquitous tools for developers and end users alike, is being reimagined for a future where agents send, parse, and optimize communication. - What it means to build agent-friendly APIs. - The emerging MCP protocol, and how AI is collapsing the creative loop for prosumers and developers alike. Learn more: Resend: https://resend.com/ What is AX (agent experience) and how to improve it: https://resend.com/blog/agent-experience A deep dive into MCP and the future of AI tooling: https://a16z.com/a-deep-dive-into-mcp-and-the-future-of-ai-tooling/ Dracula theme: https://draculatheme.com/ Follow everyone on X: Zeno Rocha - https://x.com/zenorocha Yoko Li - https://x.com/stuffyokodraws Check out everything a16z is doing with artificial intelligence, including articles, projects, and more podcasts, here: https://a16z.com/ai/ Chapters: 0:00 - 00:36 | Intro 00:37 - 02:16 | Developers Creating Agent Experience 02:17 - 04:06 | What Is Agent Experience? 04:07 - 07:29 | Email Is Being Redefined For A Future Where Agents Handle Communication.| 07:30 - 09:31 | New Competencies In AI 09:32 - 11:00 | Challenges In Email 11:01 - 13:05 | Future Experiences That Will Empower Consumers 13:06 - 18:19 | How Can Marketers Leverage Tech To Send High-Quality Emails 18:20 - 24:13 | Creating Agentic Workflow, MCP and The Evolving Ecosystem 24:14 - 27:43 | MCP’s Workflow, Adoption + Database 27:44 -32:48 | Creative Use Cases For Developers 32:49 - 35:52 | Advice For Developers Who Want To Build With AI 35:53 - 41:29 | Side Projects That Solve Problems 41:30 - 44:03 |The Future Of Email
"When you go to all these different apps you go to Superbase, the most databases you see there were built by humans. You go to resend, the emails were sent by humans or drafted by humans and then sent ..."
"Recently we've been seeing a lot of agent centric applications and then developers kind of utilizing LMS to build net new experiences. And then what's interesting is that a lot of the developers I met..."
"experience is such an interesting term because like when I hear the term agent experience, I wonder is this like a developer experience but for agents or is this a developer experience that's better f..."
"especially that email is like a service every human developer needs either personally or as part of what they're building because like once someone signs up you want to send them a welcome email so on..."
"been thinking about generating applications, generating even like a CLI tool. Like I'm a huge fan of cursor, so I use it every single day. At the same time, I keep wondering what does it look like if ..."
"we think about the email world? I guess like when I think about email, I'll think about I'm either on the receiving end or on the sending end. On the sending end, if I'm a non-technical user, I want t..."
"interesting experiences one can build with email whether it's from a developer or a consumer. Uh so as example like my husband and I we built this app that sends emails to us and texts us when our cat..."
"a way like what would be a great way for say if I'm a marketer or designer I want to send an email like what's the best way to leverage existing tools like new email or others to kind of send high qua..."
"things, do you see the generation experience as a agentic workflow? How do you feel that? Do you think you're building an agent? In many ways, I think yes. And then in other ways, I'm like is this rea..."
"cases I've actually seen MCP today is very local first because of the nature of how the MCP clients are implemented. First SSE is kind of a pain to implement. So most of people kind of default to impl..."
"Yeah that is very true. Obviously, I've been playing it's recent. It's always recommended by agents at LMS because the distribution of the training data. I guess it's there's just so much of that. Eve..."
"Do you have advice for developers who are now navigating this whole AI landscape who are building either app for the agents or app using the agents uh or just you know entering the AI domain? Uh like ..."
"to the other question which I I love asking founders. I know you probably don't have time to work on side projects but if you did have time, what are the side projects you wanted to work on? Wow, I ac..."
"crystal ball and you you can predict the future, what do you think the future of email and future of AI will look like? I believe today there's a lot of actions that we take as humans. uh and that's t..."