The good, the bad, and the future of AI agents

The good, the bad, and the future of AI agents

Author: The Verge October 2, 2025 Duration: 46:35
This is Hayden Field, senior AI reporter at The Verge and your Thursday episode guest host. Today, I’m talking with David Hershey, who leads the applied AI team at Anthropic. I wanted to have David on because earlier this week, Anthropic released a brand-new AI model called Claude Sonnet 4.5 that’s been making waves. So I wanted to sit down with David, who spends a lot of time testing out what modes like Claude Sonnet 4.5 can and can’t do, to ask him where we are on this promise of AI agents, and also what the path forward looks like as agentic technology progresses. Links:  Anthropic releases Claude Sonnet 4.5 in latest bid for AI agents | The Verge ChatGPT’s built-in Buy Now button has arrived | The Verge OpenAI really wants you to start your day with ChatGPT Pulse | The Verge Anthropic’s Claude AI is playing Pokémon | The Verge  AI agents are science fiction not yet ready for primetime | The Verge Agents are the future AI companies promise and need | The Verge  Amazon is betting on agents to win the AI race | Decoder Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At the intersection of power, innovation, and consequence, you'll find Decoder with Nilay Patel. Hosted by The Verge's editor-in-chief, this isn't a typical business or technology podcast that simply recites the news. Instead, Nilay engages with founders, CEOs, legislators, and artists in substantive conversations that dissect the mechanics behind major decisions. The dialogue focuses on the real-world implications of big ideas, probing how today's choices in boardrooms and legislatures ripple out into society tomorrow. You'll hear guests articulate their toughest challenges, the trade-offs they've made, and the often-unseen forces shaping industries from social media and artificial intelligence to transportation and entertainment. Each episode is built on a foundation of genuine curiosity, aiming to unpack not just what is happening, but why it matters for the way we all live and work. Listening to this podcast feels like gaining access to a nuanced, behind-the-scenes briefing where strategy and philosophy collide. It's for anyone who suspects that the most important stories aren't the announcements themselves, but the human decisions, the unforeseen problems, and the ethical calculations that happen long before the headlines are written. Through these detailed conversations, Decoder provides a crucial lens on the architects of our modern world and the complex systems they are building, for better or worse.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Decoder with Nilay Patel
Podcast Episodes
Elon Musk is steamrolling Wall Street to become a trillionaire [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:51
My guest today is Ryan Mac, a technology reporter at The New York Times and co-author of the excellent book Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter, which came out in 2024. I wanted to have Ryan on today because…
AI is blowing up music. How should the Grammys handle it? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:05:53
I last talked to Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr in 2024 — when it was obvious that generative AI would upend the music industry, but not exactly clear how that would happen. Now, Harvey says AI is “omnipresent” in…
Rivian's software chief thinks you don't need CarPlay or buttons [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:09:59
Today, I’m talking with Wassym Bensaid, the chief software officer at Rivian, and the co-ceo of Rivian’s platform joint venture with Volkswagen. That joint venture, called RV Tech, is about a year and a half old, so I wa…
How Sundar Pichai is rethinking Google for the AI era [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:16
Connecting with Google CEO Sundar Pichai at I/O every year is one of my favorite Decoder traditions. This was our fifth year doing it, and there’s always a whole slew of new things to talk about. This year, in addition t…
Musk v Altman: Much ado about nothing [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:01
Musk v Altman was nominally about OpenAI's conversion to a for-profit entity, and how it went about that change. But really, the suit seems mostly to have been about Elon Musk being mad at Sam Altman — or at OpenAI, for…
Exclusive: Jonah Peretti explains why he sold BuzzFeed [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:10:22
Just days before we spoke, BuzzFeed co-founder and CEO Jonah Peretti agreed to sell the company, which was losing money and at risk of shutting down. Now there’s a new lease on life — and new leadership. Jonah is taking…
How companies weaponize the terms of service against you [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:36
Brendan Ballou is founder of the Public Integrity Project and author of the new book, When Companies Run the Courts, about the rise of forced arbitration. Forced arbitration is similarly everywhere in modern life, and th…
Joanna Stern is not a robot, but she lived with them [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:00:24
My guest today is longtime friend of the show Joanna Stern. You all know Joanna: she is the former senior personal technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal, a former Decoder guest host, one of my co-founders at T…
Rewind: How AI is fueling an existential crisis in education [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:05
Hey, everyone, Nilay here. We’re off today, while the team and I are cooking on a lot of really great stuff in the coming weeks. We’ll be back with an all-new interview on Monday. In the meantime, we really wanted to hig…