New era of digital autonomy

AGENTIC AI: PROMISES COST-CUTTING, IMPROVED EFFICIENCY, ABILITY TO SCALE OPERATIONS

- Hein Kaiser

Will humans be replaced by machines sooner than we thought? Generative artificial intelligence (AI) took the world by storm just over a year ago and, now, the next leap for robotkind has arrived: agentic AI. And its rise is fast creating a new business reality.

Unlike its predecessor, which wowed the world with its ability to create from amassed knowledge, agentic AI doesn't just generate content. It also takes action.

It operates autonomously, orchestrating complex workflows, solving problems and making decisions without constant human input.

Carmen Murray, a netnographer who studies people's online interactions and cultural experience, says: "Picture this: a business of one with the capacity of hundreds.

"A personal assistant that doesn't just organize your day but runs your operations, or a clone of yourself tackling the mundane while you focus on strategy and creativity.

"This isn't science fiction anymore, but science fact."

Agentic AI holds the potential to transform industries, whether in services or manufacturing, promising efficiency, scalability and a new era of digital autonomy.

It may, however, come at a significant human opportunity cost: jobs.