Jed Borovik, Product Lead at Google Labs, discusses Jules, Google's AI coding agent, during an interview at GitHub Universe.
Insight
Borovik: Agent scaffolding gets simpler as underlying models improve
“I think one of the things we've seen is the scaffolds get simpler and simpler over time as the models get better. And in some ways, this, the scaffolding is almost a crutch for things the model struggles with. For example, like, you know, really complicated su…”
Opinion
Jed Borovik: AI coding tools will not reduce software engineer hiring
“I don't really Buy this, like, you know, that we're not gonna hire more software engineers story. I think, like, for a few reasons I mean, this is an example that, that often comes up, but is it, like, kind of the elasticity of the demand for software?”
Insight
Autonomous coding agents require dedicated computing environments over local workspaces
“Autonomous, you know, means, like, it has its own computer, right? So for Jules, it's, you know, the end. Yeah, exactly. So tons of agents that run, you know, locally or in your workspace with you while you're coding but if you want something that's going to r…”
Insight
Borovik: The two core AI agent challenges are specification and verification
“They're kind of like two problems as these things get better. One is like, how do you specify what you want? And the other one is how do you verify that what you got is what you're.”
Assertion Supported
Borovik: Google built internal AI coding tools in Cider IDE for years
“Being Google, we built a lot of our own tools and, you know, cider, which, you know, folks maybe have heard of is our, you know, our internal IDE and we've had all kinds of, you know, capabilities and tools there for a while. So yes, you know, we certainly hav…”
Disclosure
Google Labs launched Jules CLI, plans integration with Gemini CLI
“So we have the dual CLI we launched a couple of weeks ago, which lets you interact with it. By the time this podcast comes out, we'll be in the integrated with the Gemini CLI.”