The technology behind AI-powered bots has quickly caught the attention of the public. However, an even stronger application of generative AI is creating a buzz with business leaders. Agentic AI is what it’s called.
Tech guru: “This innovative technology will redefine AI capabilities. It’s not just another buzzword in the industry. Bernard Marr In his Intelligence Revolution Newsletter, he wrote on Monday.
He said that agentic AI is a term used to describe artificial intelligence systems with a certain degree of autonomy, which can act independently to achieve specific goals. “Unlike traditional AI models that simply respond to prompts or execute predefined tasks, agentic AI can make decisions, plan actions, and even learn from its experiences — all in pursuit of objectives set by its human creators.”
“Agentic AI is the hot thing right now,” commented Jason Wong. A vice president analyst at GartnerStamford-based research and advisory firm.
He explained that not only will the technology understand intent and do simple things such as retrieve information and generate a response on the basis of that, it can also act. It could then retrieve an API, or a tool. Wong said TechNewsWorld that it could even generate code. “For example, to solve a particular problem in Python,” Wong explained.
He added, “The agency that’s behind it is highly unpredictable, but it has AI and tooling.” “It can solve problems by planning how to answer questions and address issues.
Step Beyond Gen AI
Scott Dylan is the founder of NexaTech VenturesVenture capital firm in Manchester, England argued that agentic AI is a step above generative AI. “While generative AI focuses on creating content — text, images, code — based on existing data, agentic AI has a sense of autonomy,” he told TechNewsWorld. It can take real-time decisions, perform actions and adapt without the need for constant human input.
“Think of this as moving from an tool that gives suggestions to one which executes tasks on its own, learning the environment in which it is deployed,” he said.
Agentic AI is an evolution of traditional generative AI, incorporating self prompted reasoning, dynamic computation allocation, and adaptive problem-solving abilities, said Dev Nag. CEO and founder at QueryPalChatbots for business in San Francisco.
“Unlike generative AI, which primarily focuses on producing content based on input prompts, agentic AI can autonomously allocate more ‘thinking time’ to complex tasks, employ hidden chain-of-thought search spaces, and utilize reinforcement learning to optimize its reasoning processes,” he told TechNewsWorld.
This shift allows agentic artificial intelligence to tackle more complex problems and adapt their approach depending on the task. They can go beyond simple text generation, to more human like problem solving across multiple domains of tokenizable datasets,” he explained. “It’s fair to say that modern agentic AI — like OpenAI’s o1 — builds on generative AI as its infrastructure but can accomplish a wider range of goals.”
Transformative technology
Agentic AI is a powerful tool that can have a transformative impact on many businesses.
Agentic AI can transform industries, automating complex decision-making and repetitive tasks. Hodan Omaar is a senior AI analyst at the Center for Data InnovationTechNewsWorld was told by a Washington, D.C. think tank that studies the intersection of technology, data, and public policies.
Dylan said, “Businesses will soon undergo a major shift as a result of agentic AI.” It’s not only about automating the processes, but also empowering systems to make complex decisions. This level of autonomy in finance could lead to more personalized customer service systems and fraud prevention programs that adapt with the threat landscape, without constant human oversight.
He added: “I am excited by its potential to improve fields like healthcare.” Imagine a health-care system that doesn’t just diagnose patients based upon symptoms, but monitors them after the diagnosis is made and adjusts treatment plans according to ongoing data. This is a vision for the future, but agentic AI’s work is moving us closer.
Nag stated that agentic AI would revolutionize fields such as law, medicine, or finance by automating complex cognitive functions. These tasks could replace jobs involving routine analyses, but they also create new roles focused AI oversight and human/AI cooperation.
“The ability for agentic AIs to scale at runtime in order to solve more difficult problems, without necessarily needing larger models or additional training data, could democratize the access to advanced AI abilities and allow smaller businesses to take advantage of powerful AI tools,” added he.
He added that “this new paradigm of runtime scale introduces a new dimension to AI beyond just hardware scaling and training data scaling which has been the battleground for AI companies in the last two year,”
Shared brains, shared problems
As with generative AI agentic AI is not without its issues. “Inevitably, because AI agents use a language model as their ‘brain,’ they share at least all the problems that generative AI does and then some,” noted Sandi Besen, an applied AI researcher at IBM and Neudesic, a global professional services company.
She told TechNewsWorld that “the inherent variability in generative AI increases when you use multiple agents simultaneously and give them the ability to collaborate with each other.” There are ways to mitigate this. For example, ensuring that the AI system is properly evaluated and includes a human in the loop.
“Agentic AI, like other AI forms, has the ability to increase users’ productivity.” It can automate many processes and save time and money by performing the various steps. Cato InstituteThink tank based in Washington, D.C.
He told TechNewsWorld that while some people will use an AI tool to create offensive content or for malicious purposes, there are many other positive uses of the technology. It should be allowed flourish without burdensome government regulations like those in the EU. As a result, major tech firms are withholding new AI software in Europe. This is making Europeans even worse.
AGI: Closer to Reality?
Is the field getting closer to AGI, the Holy Grail of AI?
“A fundamental trait of general intelligence, whether in humans or animals, is the ability to adapt — sensing environmental signals, responding to them, and learning from those responses. Agentic AI is a significant step towards general intelligence. Rogers Jeffrey Leo John is the co-founder and chief technology officer of DataChatTechNewsWorld reported that in Madison, Wisc., an AI-based analytics platform with no code is available.
“However,” said he, “we’re still far away from true general intelligence. That is, we are unable to transfer knowledge gained in one situation into a totally different context.”
Shawn DuBravac CEO and president, the Avrio InstituteA technology consulting firm in Madison for CxOs, executives and CxOs, doubted that agentic AI was a route to AGI. He told TechNewsWorld: “I’d argue that agentic artificial intelligence is not the precursor to AGI.” “It is not clear that AGI can be achieved through a linear progression from existing AI technologies, such as agentic AI.”
“In actuality, I believe it will be very unlikely,” he added. “If we achieve AGI, the path we take will require breakthroughs and new paradigms in intelligence that are significantly different from what we’ve achieved so far and likely to accomplish over the next few years.”
