Illinois Mobile App Master Calendar

Speaker: Dr. Malgorzata (Gosia) Steinder, IBM Fellow at IBM research in Yorktown Heights, NY

Title: From Code to Agents: The New Era of Application Platforms

Abstract:

GenAI introduces a new wave of applications that rely on LLMs to execute business logic. This leads to novel application patterns: code (which may be AI-generated), interaction with LLMs and tools, and preservation of state in semantically rich state management systems. This new class of applications presents novel challenges: stochastic variability of outcomes, autonomy, and new failure modes and security threats  Significant advances in models and frameworks have improved capabilities, but do not solve the fundamental system-level reliability problems AI applications face. We argue that meeting this challenge requires a new class of platform-level primitives for agents. In this talk, I identify these primitives across identity and multi-layer permission systems, agent state engineering and isolation, tool management, resiliency, and observability.  I  examine approaches that our team in IBM Research is currently taking to solve some of these problems and the open challenges that remain.

Biography:

Dr. Malgorzata (Gosia) Steinder is an IBM Fellow  at IBM Research in Yorktown Heights, NY. With 30 years of experience in computer science research, she leads initiatives at the intersection of Hybrid Cloud and Artificial Intelligence. Her research has shaped IBM's middleware and cloud platforms, including foundational work on cloud management, container services, and cloud security. She has authored over 70 publications, holds 50+ patents, and has served on program committees of multiple top conferences and as an Associate Editor for several journals including IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems. Dr. Steinder earned her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Delaware, where she received the Alan P. Colburn Prize for Best Doctoral Dissertation.