From Chat to Agents: Five AI Engineering Paradigms

# Description

Software development with AI is no longer just prompting. It spans everything from quick chat prompts to autonomous agents and AI-infused features. In this live-coding session, a simple game evolves through five AI engineering paradigms:

• Chat-Oriented Programming:

Explore ideas and approaches through conversational prompts

• AI-Assisted Programming

Use inline code completions to speed up development

• Prompt-Powered Programming

Generate, test, and refactor code using structured prompts

• Agentic Workflows

Delegate multi-step tasks to agents with minimal intervention

• AI-Infused Products

Build user-facing features powered by AI capabilities

Participants see how work shifts between humans and AI across these paradigms, and leave with a practical framework to choose the right paradigm for their context.

Most teams are experimenting with AI, but lack a clear way to decide how to use it effectively. This talk cuts through the AI hype and clarifies how to actually use AI in day-to-day software development. This is not a tools talk. It is about ways of working with AI. These paradigms are not theoretical. They are grounded in how our teams are already applying AI in real-world software delivery.

# Outline

- Introduction and overview: 5 min
- Live coding of a simple game across 5 AI engineering paradigms: 30 min
- Principles and practices for choosing the right paradigm: 15 min
- Q&A: 10 min