Why MCP servers should tell agents what to do next

James Ward, AWS Fellow and technical committee member of the Agentic AI Foundation, joins The New Stack's Matt Burns at AgntCon+MCPCon 2026 to discuss the rapid evolution of developer and agent experiences. Ward shares how building for AI agents has transformed engineering velocity, highlighting that development roadmaps have collapsed from months down to days. Because agents require clear guidance to reach their goals, practices that were once optional for human developer experience—such as robust error messages—are now mission-critical.