Building Conversational Agents — Thor Schaeff and Philipp Schmid, Google DeepMind
Apr 30, 2026 · 1:47:34
Thor Schaeff and Philipp Schmid of Google DeepMind demonstrate building conversational agents with the Gemini Interactions API and Live API, arguing that the new Interactions API simplifies agent development by introducing server-side state management, unified content blocks, and remote MCP support. They walk through creating a coding agent with read/write file and bash tools using Gemini 3 Flash, highlighting how the model uses tool calling to execute commands and return results. The Live API, powering real-time voice and video interactions, supports native multilingual audio, tool calling, and Google Search grounding, though the presenters acknowledge its current limitations in production, including lack of session transcript retrieval and shorter context windows (15 minutes audio-only). They showcase a Live Jukebox demo integrating Lyria 3 music generation and discuss business use cases like Shopify Sidekick, Waymo, and elderly companion apps, emphasizing that while the technology is ready for experimentation, production readiness depends on partner integrations for observability and compliance.
