The Trifecta of 2026: AI Agents, Hybrid Wireless, and the Future of Embedded Engineering

In this week’s podcast, we’re exploring the three trends poised to redefine how we design, simulate, and deploy complex systems in 2026 and beyond: agentic AI and the model context protocol for tool integration, hybrid terrestrial and non‑terrestrial wireless networks, and moving AI onto embedded hardware using virtual sensing and reduced‑order models. My guests, Seth DeLand and Houman Zarrinkoub from MathWorks, and I explore the practical problems in engineering workflows driving interest in agentic AI, the engineering challenges of hybrid terrestrial and non‑terrestrial wireless networks, and how smaller AI models can enable faster simulation and real‑time system responses.