As someone intrigued by the power of artificial intelligence, I continually try to keep myself updated on the most recent developments in this technology, and trust me, there is always something new brewing! It seems that each day I wake up to come across yet another groundbreaking technological development from the world of artificial intelligence.
Most recently, I came across an exciting new development emerging within the artificial intelligence space, called agentic AI. Agentic AI is making major strides across multiple industries, supported by cutting-edge technology’s huge transformative potential for businesses.
JPMorgan Chase saved 360,000 hours of manual review a year, AT&T, reduced operational expenses by 15%, and last but not least, Netflix and Amazon increased customer retention by 20% and 10%, respectively. These industry leaders are a testament to the power of agentic AI and also a wake-up call for other businesses to invest in their digital infrastructure.
This includes implementing efficient data storage systems, cloud computing services, and cybersecurity measures as well as a reliable and high-speed internet connection to power them all. If you’re looking for a suggestion, you can reach out to Xfinity customer service for a high-speed business internet plan and keep your operations running smoothly.
By now you’re probably wondering what agentic AI is and why I’m so hyped talking about it! Trust me, by the end of this article, you will be too! This article will explore agentic AI, its pros and cons for businesses, and the future it holds for us.
What is Agentic AI?
Agentic AI is the next step forward in artificial intelligence. While previous artificial intelligence systems were enabled to act within a certain set of pre-defined rules, agentic AI systems will be enabled to act independently and perform a broader range of complex tasks.
Agentic AI systems are primarily goal-driven and will be able to set goals and perform independent actions to achieve those goals, all the while dynamically learning and adapting their decisions and actions based on updated data or developments.
These advanced AI systems will also possess the humanlike ability to handle and perform multiple functions to carry out complex tasks simultaneously, a level up from older AI systems that could only perform a single task at any given time.
Let’s take a quick look at how the tech works.
How Does Agentic AI Work?
The root of this technology is a complex network of autonomous software components known as agents, each designed with varying goals and abilities to handle diverse tasks.
These agents work together to extract and analyze large amounts of data, enabling the AI system to learn and adapt its decisions and actions accordingly, with minimal human interference.
Agentic AI enables agents to learn, communicate, and take effective actions by leveraging other advanced technologies such as machine learning, natural language processing, and predictive analysis. The agents perform tasks based on the 4-step framework below:
- Perception: the agents collect and extract data from sensors, databases, and more to identify patterns and generate insights applicable to their environment.
- Reasoning: a large language model acts as the voice of reason, analyzing the tasks, crafting plans, and ensuring coordination among specialized models based on the task or tasks at hand.
- Acting: based on the plans crafted, the agents connect with external systems using APIs. Security measures can be implemented using guardrails built into the agents.
- Learning and Adapting: agentic AI systems continuously go through feedback to help the system learn and improve its performance. The data from the most recent task is placed back into the system to help it learn and adapt, resulting in more informed decisions, and efficient task handling going ahead.
Now that you’re aware of how this technology works, let’s take a look at what it can do and some challenges the tech will create for businesses when planning to implement it.
Pros and Cons of Agentic AI
Here is the positive side of things before exploring the challenges.
Pros of Agentic AI
- Improved Operational Productivity and Efficiency: by setting goals and making independent decisions, agentic AI can accelerate business processes across all functions, saving time and reducing costs. Moreover, it allows more time to be allocated to strategic business growth initiatives.
- Enhanced Scalability and Flexibility: Unlike traditional AI models, agentic AI carries out a higher number of functions; doesn’t do human monitoring, but can complex tasks, helping businesses scale.
- Data-Backed Decision Making: Agentic AI can collect, process, analyze, and adapt based on data allowing businesses to stay one step ahead of trends, assess risks and navigational strategies, and leap on potential growth opportunities.
However, there are some potential challenges as well.
Cons of Agentic AI
- High Implementational Costs: When initially implementing this technology, businesses will have to allocate a significant budget to acquiring, integrating, and securing the tech along with training employees on handling it. This presents a major challenge for small and medium-sized businesses.
- Security Concerns: agentic AI systems will be handling essentially a ton of sensitive data, making it all the more necessary to ensure effective security protocols. There is also the possibility of data breaches as the agentic AI system may unknowingly expose data due to its autonomous nature.
- Understanding Thought Process: how agentic AI reasons and arrives at conclusions is not transparent, making it difficult to entirely trust the technology. Businesses will have to implement systems that are transparent on the logic fueling their actions and set up review departments that analyze the reasoning process.
What Does the Future Hold for Agentic AI?
Agentic AI is not just a temporary buzz, it is here to stay and reshape the future when it comes to business process automation, efficiency, and intelligence.
Despite the challenges, businesses that invest today will enjoy a range of benefits such as improved productivity, flexibility, and making the right decisions at the right time.
These advanced AI systems will also potentially provide multiple opportunities for innovative global collaborations that may expand and bring forth the next phase of AI for us to witness.
