The Fat Pipe - Most Popular Packet Pushers Pods TNO041: From Ansible to AI: Jeremy Schulman on the Evolution of Network Automation
Sep 12, 2025
Jeremy Schulman, network automation leader and senior director at MLB, who bridges IT systems and automation. He talks about shifting from server-focused tools to application-centric network automation. He explains making networks accessible to app teams, using Ansible and MCP to wrap legacy interfaces, and evolving from chatbots to LLM-driven autonomous digital co-workers.
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Why Ansible Worked For Networking
- Ansible succeeded because it lowered friction for network engineers who didn't want to be programmers.
- Peter Spragato and community modules made Ansible a practical bridge between network ops and automation.
Document Workflows Before You Automate
- Do require teams to document current manual workflows before automating anything.
- Jeremy makes people write user-story style plans so you can estimate effort and choose off‑the‑shelf versus custom code accurately.
MLB Chatbot Project Grew Into AI Integration
- Jeremy's first project at MLB was a Slack chatbot to expose network info to non‑network teams.
- That chatbot evolved from simple Slack phrases in 2019 to integration with AI tools and MCP today.