AI Agent

Agentic AI is a class of artificial intelligence that focuses on autonomous systems that can make decisions and perform tasks without human intervention. The independent systems automatically respond to conditions, to produce process results. The field is closely linked to agentic automation, also known as agent-based process management systems, when applied to process automation. Applications include software development, customer support, cybersecurity and business intelligence.

Overview

The core concept of agentic AI is the use of ''AI agents'' to perform automated tasks but without human intervention. While robotic process automation (RPA) and AI agents can be programmed to automate specific tasks or support rule-based decisions, the rules are usually fixed. Agentic AI operates independently, making decisions through continuous learning and analysis of external data and complex data sets. Functioning agents can require various AI techniques, such as natural language processing, machine learning (ML), and computer vision, depending on the environment.

Particularly, reinforcement learning (RL) is essential in assisting agentic AI in making self-directed choices by supporting agents in learning best actions through the trial-and-error method. Agents using RL continuously to explore their surroundings will be given rewards or punishment for their actions, which refines their decision-making capability over time. All the while deep learning, as opposed to rule-based methods, supports agentic AI through multi-layered neural networks to learn features from extensive and complex sets of data. RL combined with deep learning thus supports the use of AI agents to adjust dynamically, optimize procedures, and engage in complex behaviors with limited control from humans.

History

Some scholars trace the conceptual roots of agentic AI to Alan Turing's mid-20th century work with machine intelligence and Norbert Wiener's work on feedback systems. The term agent-based process management system was used as far back as 1998 to describe the concept of using autonomous agents for business process management. The psychological principle of agency was also discussed in the 2008 work of sociologist Albert Bandura, who studied how humans can shape their environments. This research would shape how humans modeled and developed artificial intelligence agents.

Some additional milestones of agentic AI include IBM's Deep Blue, demonstrating how agency could work within a confined domain, advances in machine learning in the 2000s, AI being integrated into robotics, and the rise of generative AI such as OpenAI's GPT models and Salesforce's Agentforce platform.

In the last decade, significant advances in AI have spurred the development of agentic AI. Breakthroughs in deep learning, reinforcement learning, and neural networks allowed AI systems to learn on their own and make decision with minimal human guidance. Consilience of agentic AI across autonomous transportation, industrial automation, and tailored healthcare has also supported its viability. Self-driving cars use agentic AI to handle complex road scenarios.

In 2025, research firm Forrester named agentic AI a top emerging technology for 2025.

Applications

Applications using agentic AI include:
*Software development - AI coding agents can write large pieces of code, and review it. Agents can even perform non-code related tasks such as reverse engineering specifications from code.
*Customer support automation - AI agents can improve customer service by improving the ability of chatbots to answer a wider variety of questions, rather than having a limited set of answers pre-programmed by humans.
*Enterprise workflows - AI agents can automatically automate routine tasks by processing pooled data, as opposed to a company needing APIs preprogrammed for specific tasks.
*Cybersecurity and threat detection - AI agents deployed for cybersecurity can automatically detect and mitigate threats in real time. Security responses can also be automated based on the type of threat.
*Business intelligence - AI agents can support business intelligence to produce more useful analytics, such as responding to natural language voice prompts.
*Real-world applications - agentic AI is already being used in many real-world situations to automate complex tasks, across industries, and therefore has been successfully deployed in many departments and organizations. Some of the examples are
**Manufacturing and predictive maintenance - Siemens AG uses agentic AI to analyze real-time sensor data from industrial equipment, predicting failures before they occur. Following the deployment of agentic AI in their operations, they reduced unplanned downtime by 25%.>
**Finance and algorithmic trading - At JPMorgan & Chase they developed various tools for financial services, one being "LOXM" that executes high-frequency trades autonomously, adapting to market volatility faster than human traders.
**Medical diagnostics - Google partnered with Moorfield's Eye Hospital and detected eye diseases by analyzing 3D eye scans achieving 94% accuracy in trials.>
**Retail and customer service - Walmart uses AI chatbots to handle 80% of customer inquiries autonomously, including returns and inventory queries.

Related concepts

Agentic automation, sometimes referred to as agentic process automation, refers to applying agentic AI to generate and operate workflows. In one example, large language models can construct and execute automated (agentic) workflows, reducing or eliminating the need for human intervention.

While agentic AI is characterized by its decision-making and action-taking capabilities, generative AI is distinguished by its ability to generate original content based on learned patterns.

Robotic process automation (RPA) describes how software tools can automate repetitive tasks, with predefined workflows and structured data handling. RPA's static instructions limit its value. Agentic AI is more dynamic, allowing unstructured data to be processed and analyzed, including contextual analysis, and allowing interaction with users.

See also

* Intelligent agent
* Model Context Protocol
* Rational agent
* Software agent

References

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