Abstract

Mapping the AI Landscape: Building and Deploying Data-Centric AI Applications with Posit 

Artificial intelligence is reshaping what we build, how we build it, and how we share the results. In a landscape shifting this rapidly, with new tools and practices coming out every week, staying oriented is not easy. This talk offers a practical map for this new landscape, walking through the end-to-end lifecycle of an AI-native application.

What we build. We will explore the open source packages that Posit maintains to develop tools and applications to interact with LLMs. 

How we build. Effective AI assistance requires rich local context. We will show how embedded AI tools in Positron and RStudio tap directly into live session state (loaded data, active plots, and console history) giving developers agentic editing, planning modes, and session memory that general-purpose chatbots cannot match. Behind the scenes, enterprise infrastructure safely brokers model credentials and distributes vetted, version-pinned AI agent skills across teams just like standard software packages.

How we share. Moving from laptop to production requires secure delivery. We’ll cover how Posit Connect hosts the final application while managing user permissions and server-side Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrations.

You will leave this session with a clear snapshot of the current terrain, an understanding of how open-source and enterprise components fit together, and the practical knowledge to navigate what comes next.