While the technology behind AI-powered chatbots quickly captured the public imagination, an even more powerful application of generative artificial intelligence has been creating a buzz among business leaders. It’s called agentic AI.
“This innovative technology is not just another industry buzzword; it’s a paradigm shift that’s poised to redefine the boundaries of AI capabilities,” tech guru Bernard Marr wrote Monday in his Intelligence Revolution newsletter.
At its core, agentic AI refers to artificial intelligence systems that possess a degree of autonomy and can act on their own to achieve specific goals,” he noted. “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 hottest thing going right now,” observed Jason Wong, a vice president analyst with Gartner, a research and advisory company based in Stamford, Conn.
He explained that the technology will not only understand intent and do very simple things like retrieve information and generate some response based on that, but it can also take action. “So, it could retrieve an API or a tool. Or even generate code, like generating Python code to solve a problem,” Wong told TechNewsWorld.
“The agency behind it is highly variable, but it’s AI coupled with tooling,” he continued. “It has the ability to plan how to address your question, your problem, and then activate the tooling and solve your problem.”
Step Beyond Gen AI
Scott Dylan, founder of NexaTech Ventures, a venture capital firm in Manchester, England, maintained that agentic AI takes a significant step beyond 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 make decisions, take actions, and adapt in real-time without needing constant human input.”
“Think of it as moving from a tool that provides suggestions to one that independently executes tasks, learning from the environment it’s deployed in,” he said.
Agentic AI represents a significant evolution from traditional generative AI by incorporating self-prompted reasoning, dynamic compute allocation and adaptive problem-solving capabilities, added Dev Nag, CEO and founder of QueryPal, an enterprise chatbot in San Francisco.
Credit: Technewsworld
