AI at Mapbox — 20-Minute Demo Presentation

Date: Monday
Format: Demo-heavy, 20 minutes
Apps: Pre-built before the presentation

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Structure

Segment	Time
Skills intro + skills.sh discovery	2 min
Store finder app walkthrough	3 min
MCP servers intro	2 min
Trip planner app walkthrough	8 min
Where this is going / call to action	3 min
Buffer	2 min

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Segment 1: Skills (2 min)

• What are skills? Markdown files that teach agents Mapbox-specific patterns
• Live: open skills.sh, search for Mapbox, show the skill list
• Show a SKILL.md briefly — "this is what the agent reads"
• Point to npx skills add mapbox as the install path

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Segment 2: Store Finder App Walkthrough (3 min)

App: Pre-built store locator using Mapbox skills

Interesting moments to highlight:

• Show the SKILL.md that guided the build — make it concrete
• Point out a specific correct pattern the agent got right because of the skill:
  • Token security (string resource / Info.plist, not hardcoded)
  • Annotation manager created once and reused, not recreated on each update
• The contrast: "without the skill, agents get this wrong consistently"

Talking point: Skills close the gap between what the LLM knows about Mapbox and what's actually correct today.

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Segment 3: MCP Servers Intro (2 min)

• Three servers: Mapbox (Search, Directions, Isochrone, etc.), DevKit (styles, tokens), Docs (live documentation)
• Together they give the agent live Mapbox data + style control + up-to-date docs in one session
• Skills tell the agent how to use Mapbox. MCP servers give it live access to Mapbox.

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Segment 4: Trip Planner App Walkthrough (8 min)

App: Pre-built trip planner using all three MCP servers

Interesting moments to highlight:

1. Grounding in action

   • Ask: "What restaurants are near the hotel?" without MCP → hallucinated answer
   • Ask same question with Mapbox MCP → live data, citations, neighborhood name from reverse geocode
   • "This is what grounding means — anchoring the response in live data instead of training data"

2. ground_location_tool

   • Show the single tool call replacing reverse geocode + category search + isochrone
   • Show the structured response with citations

3. DevKit live style swap

   • Toggle the map style live — show the map update in real time
   • "The agent controls the style, not just the data"

4. Docs MCP

   • Show an SDK question answered inline with current documentation
   • "It's not guessing from training data — it's reading the actual docs"

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Segment 5: Where This Is Going (3 min)

• Skills coverage gaps: testing, Flutter, React Native — issues filed, contributions welcome
• Evals: we measure skill quality with a before/after delta — show the +37pp improvement example
• Grounding as a Mapbox product direction: ground_location_tool is a proof of concept for a grounding API
• Call to action: try npx skills add mapbox, file issues, contribute skills

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Apps to Build

• Store finder — uses mapbox-store-locator-patterns skill, search + markers + directions
• Trip planner — uses Mapbox MCP (search, directions, isochrone), DevKit (styles), Docs MCP

Open Questions

• Which platform for store finder? (web / iOS / Android / React Native)
• Trip planner stack? (web most demo-friendly)
• Record backup video of each demo in case of live failure