Beyond the Code: How AI Agents are Reshaping the Jupyter Ecosystem
Yao-Ting Yao, a Software Engineer at Clark Center for Geospatial Analytics (Clark CGA) recently represented the Center at JupyterCon 2025. This major conference brought together users and developers to showcase the latest achievements in the Jupyter Ecosystem. The conference expanded the collective knowledge of what the Project Jupyter platform can do and highlighted how Jupyter can leverage AI and drive its development.
Clark CGA is one of the organizations contributing to JupyterGIS. JupyterGIS is a JupyterLab extension which allows collaborative Geographical Information System (GIS) development. It supports QGIS project files and also provides Python API for Python developers to integrate with Python geospatial libraries. As much of this open-source collaboration happens digitally, the conference allowed Yao-Ting to connect in person with the developers she usually only sees online. It was a chance to strengthen those relationships.
The most significant takeaway from the conference was the rapid evolution of AI Agents. Yao-Ting noted that the AI technology is blooming and has moved beyond just the simple tools. Developers are now learning how to work efficiently alongside AI agents to optimize their workflow and significantly reduce their development time. Additionally, the industry is seeing new capabilities where different AI agents can collaborate with one another. The challenge for developers now is to learn how to partner with these intelligent systems efficiently. Additionally, in one of the AI lectures, Zach Sailer from Apple said that while humans and machines work together, humans remain heavily in the loop, and creating more advanced AI systems is still a deeply human-focused process.
Back at the Center, Yao-Ting is focused on working to integrate these insights into our daily operations. She is further introducing the team to these new AI tools and outlining the pros and cons of incorporating them into our workflows. This experience is helping Clark CGA stay ahead of the curve as we learn to incorporate these powerful new workflows into our research.
