In this crossover episode, hosts Rick Watson and Jessica Lesesky talk with Shailesh Kumar, SVP of Engineering at Salesforce. He is the Head of Engineering for Salesforce Commerce & Retail Cloud. He previously served as SVP and Head of Engineering at ClickUp and VP of Engineering at MuleSoft, both of which were acquired by Salesforce.

The headline hangover contains job numbers, Google, and the open web. Vivrelle added an AI stylist feature and Office Depot's new pickup promise.

This episode of the Watson Weekend is sponsored by Rithum. Rithum Live 2025 will be in New York City on September 25, and Rick Watson will attend and be on stage. In London on 9 October, with Watson Weekend producer Vinny O'Brien, who will attend and be on stage. For more details, go to rithum.com/nyc

This crossover episode, which includes the Oh Shift episode, can be viewed as an AI primer that will benefit listeners by clarifying the acronyms and terminology associated with agentic commerce.

In this conversation, we dive into:

The opportunity that the model context protocol (MCP) provides developers and, in the future, non-developers

What Shailesh and this team want to evaluate from the current MCP pilot within Commerce Cloud.

How software development will evolve as more tools and agents democratize the creation of software.

The difference between public large language models and custom-built large language models.

The distinction between deterministic output and non-deterministic flow has long existed in software engineering, along with the risks it poses to businesses.

AgentForce, which Salesforce offers partners to develop agents on, and provides pre-built agents to Salesforce customers.

How agents and platforms can interact with stitching and have guardrails around them to enable merchants to deliver joy to consumers.

The impact that agentic commerce will have inside organizations and how to handle the speed of innovation.

Chapters

Welcome to The Watson Weekend - 00:00

Headline Hangover - 02:40

Introducing the O Shift podcast - 13:08

Introducing Shailesh Kumar -17:03

What is Model Context Protocol (MCP)? - 19:13

Why is Salesforce investing in MCP capabilities? - 21:47

Who is the current target audience for MCP? - 23:00

What is the difference between deterministic and non-deterministic workflows in AI agents? 26:02

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