Everyone's seen the agent demos by now. Production is a different animal. The moment an agent touches real data, real users, and a P&L, the easy questions get replaced by harder ones: how do you know it's reliable, which tools should it have access to, when does a human need to approve before it acts, and how do you tell whether any of it is actually moving the business?
This will be the founding event of Tri-Valley AI Builders & Systems Leaders, a new local community for practical conversations around AI, systems, architecture, product, automation, and technology leadership in the Tri-Valley.
What we'll get into:
- Why so many agent demos quietly die in production
- Use cases that are actually working right now
- Architecture patterns worth knowing: RAG, tool use, memory, evals, observability
- Governance, access control, audit trails, and where humans belong in the loop
- How to pick a first use case that won't embarrass you
- How to tell whether any of it is paying off
No sales pitches. No "what is an LLM" intros. Just a room of people in the trenches, comparing notes.
## Why is this a founding event
The Tri-Valley has many talented software developers, architects, product leaders, executives, founders, and AI practitioners. But we do not yet have enough local forums where serious conversations about technology happen consistently.
This first event is intentionally designed as a founding session. We will discuss AI agents in production, but we will also spend time shaping what this community should become.
Attendees will be invited to help define future topics, formats, speakers, demos, workshops, and community goals.
## Who should attend
This event is ideal for:
- Software engineers
- AI builders
- Solutions architects and enterprise architects
- Product managers and product leaders
- Engineering leaders
- Founders and startup operators
- Technology executives
- Operations leaders working on automation
- Data, cloud, security, and governance professionals
## Agenda
| Time | Segment |
| ---- | ------- |
| 5:30 – 5:45 PM | Arrival, networking, food/snacks |
| 5:45 – 5:55 PM | Founding welcome: why this community exists |
| 5:55 – 6:20 PM | Opening discussion: why AI agents fail after the demo |
| 6:20 – 6:55 PM | Group discussion: production patterns, pitfalls, and use cases |
| 6:55 – 7:15 PM | Audience Q&A and open discussion |
| 7:15 – 7:25 PM | Founding input: what should this community become? |
| 7:25 – 7:30 PM | Closing, next topics, and ways to contribute |
