Open Source

Introduction The promise of large language models (LLMs) is compelling: intelligent agents that can handle customer interactions, provide guidance, and automate complex tasks. Yet in practice, developers face a critical challenge that no amount of prompt engineering can fully solve. An AI agent that performs flawlessly in testing often fails spectacularly in production—ignoring business rules, hallucinating information, and delivering inconsistent responses that damage brand reputation and customer trust.[3] This gap between prototype and production is where Parlant enters the picture. Built by Emcie, a startup founded by Yam Marcovitz and staffed by engineers and NLP researchers from Microsoft, Check Point, and the Weizmann Institute of Science, Parlant is an open-source framework that fundamentally rethinks how developers build conversational AI agents.[3] Rather than fighting with prompts, Parlant teaches agents how to behave through structured, programmable guidelines, journeys, and guardrails—making it possible to deploy agents at scale without sacrificing control or compliance.[3] ...

In the era of AI-driven applications, vector databases have become essential for handling high-dimensional data efficiently. Qdrant stands out as an open-source vector database and similarity search engine written in Rust, delivering exceptional performance, scalability, and features tailored for enterprise-grade AI workloads.[1][2][5] This comprehensive guide dives deep into Qdrant’s architecture, core concepts, advanced capabilities, and real-world applications. Whether you’re building recommendation systems, semantic search, or RAG pipelines, understanding Qdrant will empower you to manage billions of vectors with sub-millisecond latency. ...

Introduction Software shapes economies, governments, education, healthcare, and the environment. As a software engineer, you have unusual leverage: a small team can build systems that serve millions, influence policy, or accelerate science. But leverage cuts both ways—without intent and rigor, software can also amplify harm. This article is a practical, comprehensive guide to making your engineering work meaningfully contribute to the success of the world. It blends strategy (what to work on), tactics (how to work), and habits (how to sustain impact), with concrete examples and code you can apply immediately. ...