In this episode, Manav sits down with Mihai Criveti — IBM Distinguished Engineer and the creator of Context Forge, IBM's open-source agentic middleware — for a candid, technical conversation about what it actually takes to ship AI in the enterprise.

00:58 Navigating AI for Students

05:41 Context Forge and Scaling AI Agents

13:24 Understanding Context Forge

18:30 The Role of Middleware in AI

19:47 Evaluating AI Agents

24:10 Scaling AI in Enterprises

29:59 The Evolution of MCP Protocol

33:31 The Future of AI Agents and Workforce Dynamics

39:16 Lessons from Cloud Native to AI Agents

45:35 The State of AI and Future Predictions