Phil Whittaker - The future of AI is Skilled
Details
LLMs are powerful, but they’re probabilistic, context-limited, and unreliable when asked to do everything at once. In this talk, Phil introduces Agent Skills: small, explicit, discoverable units of capability that actively manage context, guidance, and deterministic behaviour. Instead of relying on massive prompts or generic agents, skills load only what’s needed for a task, guide the model with structure and rules, and delegate anything that must be exact to deterministic code.
Using real examples and an Umbraco-friendly mindset, this session explores the anatomy of a skill, how skills are triggered and composed, and why this approach produces more predictable, maintainable AI systems. The future of AI isn’t autonomous agents guessing their way through problems — it’s skilled systems designed with intent.
Who Should Attend
This meetup is ideal for:
- Umbraco developers and .NET engineers
- Technical leads and architects
- Developers curious about AI beyond hype and surface-level demos
No prior AI or machine learning experience is required — just an interest in building systems that behave intentionally.
Why It's Worth Attending:
This meetup is more than just a talk about AI trends. It’s an opportunity to explore a more disciplined, engineering-led approach to AI, connect with the local Umbraco community, and take part in thoughtful discussions about where AI fits — and where it doesn’t — in modern software development.
Agenda
18:00 – Open for Mingling
18:30 – Pizza and Beer
19:00 – Talk: The Future of AI Is Skilled
19:45 – Open Social + Refreshments
Entry
Please check in at reception upon arrival, where a team member will guide you to the meetup location.member will guide you to the meetup location.




