Learn to build sophisticated AI agents that go beyond traditional large language models and retrieval-augmented generation by implementing agentic systems capable of planning, reasoning, and acting through dynamic multi-step tasks in this practical 20-minute conference talk. Discover how to construct AI agents using the AWS Strands Framework with comprehensive state and session management techniques that maintain stateless agents while preserving stateful user experiences. Master the deployment of agents on AWS Serverless compute using Lambda in a portable manner that enables migration to any compute platform of choice. Implement essential authentication and authorization mechanisms alongside observability features for production-ready systems. Explore connecting agents to both internal and external tools through remote Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, with extensive working code examples demonstrating each concept throughout the presentation.