Michael Carducci

Architecture in the Age of AI

As code generation becomes increasingly automated, our role as developers and architects is evolving. The challenge ahead isn’t how to get AI to write more code, it’s how to guide it toward coherent, maintainable, and purposeful systems.

In this session, Michael Carducci reframes software architecture for the era of intelligent agents. You’ll learn how architectural constraints, composition, and trade-offs provide the compass for orchestrating AI tools effectively. Using principles from the Tailor-Made Architecture Model, Carducci introduces practical mental models to help you think architecturally, communicate intent clearly to your agents, and prevent automation from accelerating entropy. This talk reveals how the enduring discipline of architecture becomes the key to harnessing AI—not by replacing human creativity, but by amplifying it.

The Goal: Flow Architecture

When Eliyahu Goldratt wrote The Goal, he showed how local optimizations (like adding robots to a factory line) can actually decrease overall performance. Today, AI threatens to repeat that mistake in software. We’re accelerating coding without improving flow. In this talk, Michael Carducci explores what it means to architect for the goal: continuous delivery of value through systems designed for flow.

Drawing insights from Architecture for Flow, Domain-Driven Design, Team Topologies, and his own Tailor-Made Architecture Model, Carducci shows how to align business strategy, architecture, and teams around shared constraints and feedback loops. You’ll discover how to turn automation into advantage, orchestrate AI within the system of work, and build socio-technical architectures that evolve—not just accelerate.

The Art of Being an Architect

The hardest part of software architecture isn’t the technology, it’s the people. Every architecture lives or dies by its ability to influence behavior, build consensus, and turn vision into change. In this session, Michael Carducci explores the real work of being an architect: communicating clearly, guiding decisions, and driving meaningful change in complex organizations. Drawing from decades of experience and the principles behind the Tailor-Made Architecture Model, Carducci shows how to identify where change is needed, package ideas for adoption, and lead with both clarity and empathy.

And while AI may soon help us design systems, it still can’t align humans around them. The enduring art of architecture lies in shaping not just the code, but the culture that makes progress possible. You’ll leave with practical tools to navigate the human side of architecture and a renewed appreciation for why that art still matters.

Data Architecture for AI

Everyone’s talking about AI models, but almost no one is talking about the data architecture that makes them intelligent. Today’s AI systems are brittle because they lack context, semantics, and shared understanding. In this session, Michael Carducci explores how linked data, RDF, ontologies, and knowledge graphs solve the very problems that leave the industry floundering: hallucination, inconsistency, and lack of interoperability.

Drawing from real-world examples, Carducci connects decades of overlooked research in semantic web technologies to the challenges of modern AI and agentic systems. You’ll see how meaning itself can be modeled, linked, and reasoned over; and why the future of AI depends not on bigger models, but on smarter data.

Innovation: Why the Majority Is Always Wrong

If everyone agrees with you, you’re probably not innovating, you’re just conforming faster. History’s breakthroughs rarely came from consensus; they came from heretics, hackers, and the hopelessly curious. In this talk, Michael Carducci takes aim at the myth of collective wisdom and explores why the crowd is almost always optimized for the past. Through stories of misfits who changed the world—from computing pioneers to magicians who reinvented wonder; Carducci reveals the hidden patterns of real innovation: discomfort, doubt, and persistence in the face of polite disbelief.

You’ll learn how to recognize the subtle forces that suppress new ideas, how to trust your intuition when it runs counter to consensus, and how to cultivate the curiosity and courage that real innovation demands. This is a talk for the misfits, the tinkerers, and the quietly visionary… because progress has always started at the edges.

Lost Developer Wisdom

In our rush toward the future, the software industry keeps forgetting its past—and with it, the hard-won lessons that could save us from repeating the same mistakes. In this live storytelling session, Michael Carducci revives the forgotten wisdom of the pioneers who shaped our craft.

Through entertaining, thought-provoking tales drawn from computing’s early days, he reveals how timeless principles still illuminate today’s challenges in architecture, AI, and innovation. Blending inspiration, history, and humor, Carducci connects these tales to our modern struggles with AI, architecture, and innovation itself. This isn’t nostalgia—it’s a rediscovery of the foundations that still shape great software and better technologists.

Six Secrets to Succeeding with Microservices

Microservices architecture has become a buzzword in the tech industry, promising unparalleled agility, scalability, and resilience. Yet, according to Gartner, more than 90% of organizations attempting to adopt microservices will fail. How can you ensure you're part of the successful 10%?

Success begins with looking beyond the superficial topology and understanding the unique demands this architectural style places on the teams, the organization, and the environment. These demands must be balanced against the current business needs and organizational realities while maintaining a clear and pragmatic path for incremental evolution.

In this session, Michael will share some real-world examples, practical insights, and proven techniques to balance both the power and complexities of microservices. Whether you're considering adopting microservices or already on the journey and facing challenges, this session will equip you with the knowledge and tools to succeed.

Refactoring REST APIs for the Last Time: Strategies for a Future-Proof Design

REST APIs often fall into a cycle of constant refactoring and rewrites, leading to wasted time, technical debt, and endless rework. This is especially difficult when you don't control the API clients.

But what if this could be your last major API refactor? In this session, we’ll dive into strategies for designing and refactoring REST APIs with long-term sustainability in mind—ensuring that your next refactor sets you up for the future.

You’ll learn how to design APIs that can adapt to changing business requirements and scale effectively without requiring constant rewrites. We’ll explore principles like extensibility, versioning, and decoupling, all aimed at future-proofing your API while keeping backward compatibility intact. Along the way, we’ll examine real-world examples of incremental API refactoring, where breaking the cycle of endless rewrites is possible.

This session is perfect for API developers, architects, and tech leads who are ready to stop chasing their tails and want to invest in designing APIs that will stand the test of time—so they can focus on building great features instead of constantly rewriting code.

Architecture Blindspots, Biases, and Blunders: Avoiding Common Pitfalls in System Design

Architectural decisions are often influenced by blindspots, biases, and unchecked assumptions, which can lead to significant long-term challenges in system design. In this session, we’ll explore how these cognitive traps affect decision-making, leading to architectural blunders that could have been avoided with a more critical, holistic approach.

You’ll learn how common biases—such as confirmation bias and anchoring—can cloud judgment, and how to counteract them through problem-space thinking and reflective feedback loops. We’ll dive into real-world examples of architectural failures caused by biases or narrow thinking, and discuss strategies for expanding your perspective and applying critical thinking to system design.

Whether you’re an architect, developer, or technical lead, this session will provide you with tools to recognize and mitigate the impact of biases and blindspots, helping you make more informed, thoughtful architectural decisions that stand the test of time.

3rd Generation Agentic AI

Solving Integration, Intelligently

AI models are evolving fast, but the systems around them aren’t. Every backend change still breaks your carefully tuned AI client, while on the web, every change to a server doesn’t require you to download a new browser. What if AI worked the same way?

In this talk, Michael Carducci explores the architecture of 3rd Generation Agentic AI, building on the ideas and technologies introduced in Data Architecture for AI. You’ll discover how JSON-LD, Hydra, and semantic integration enable truly evolvable, interoperable AI ecosystems at web scale. Through live demos and real-world examples, Carducci shows how these web-native standards create APIs that describe themselves, adapt to change, and empower agents to discover and interact safely without brittle coupling. The real frontier isn’t smarter models—it’s shared meaning—and that’s an architectural problem worth solving.