Agentic AI and A2A in 2025: From Prompts to Processes

In this episode of The New Stack Makers podcast, Alex Williams interviews Kevin Laughridge from Google, formerly of Deloitte, at Google Cloud Next. They discuss the emergence of AI agents as a key topic, differentiating them from general AI by their ability to take action, such as processing invoices or sending emails. Laughridge explains Deloitte's role in helping clients decide between building custom solutions and buying vendor services, emphasizing the importance of open protocols like Agent2Agent (A2A) for connecting diverse ISVs and stitching together business processes. The conversation touches on the Model Context Protocol (MCP), the adoption of LLMs and AI platforms, agentic frameworks, and the management of complexity and technical debt in AI implementations. Laughridge also shares insights on AI's role in accelerating software development, improving code quality, and enabling engineers to be more efficient through AI assistance.