Designing Agents (The Floor Is the Frontier) — Ben Hylak, Raindrop
Ben Hylak from Raindrop argues that current advice on testing AI agents is designed for an older era of chatbots where user queries were predictable.
Instead, focus should be on the "floor"—the worst mistakes that destroy trust, such as when an agent recommends a competitor or deletes data—rather than on all possible problems. The key is to track two metrics for each error: when it started and how many users it affects. Hylak shares three lessons from Raindrop: classifying agent traces is not the same as error detection, automated code-based testing scales well, and agents are better at investigating anomalies than finding them on their own.
Vibekollen prepared this summary with AI from the original publication. The content belongs to AI Engineer.
More to read
Lumaril, which develops AI software for optimizing industrial production by connecting to existing control systems, raised a $66M Series A at a $400M valuation
Techmeme 4 h ago
DeepSeek open sources Super-Agent as a research prototype, a proactive coding agent it says can monitor group chats for coding issues and suggest solutions
Techmeme 5 h ago
Insurance software maker Guidewire agrees to acquire Hyperexponential, which makes AI-powered insurance underwriting and pricing software, for $1.7B in cash
Techmeme 5 h ago
One word for AI agents in 2027
Nate Herk 9 h ago