Agentic AI, Simply Explained

Agentic AI represents the current paradigm shift from AI that only responds to AI that acts on those responses.

To illustrate, while a tool like ChatGPT can help you write an email, agentic AI can go one (or many) steps further. An agent can research your recipient, create a draft, access tools relevant to your situation (perhaps your calendar app), and finally send the email.

The punchline? All you need is one prompt.

Imagine you’re a college student trying to manage your finances. Traditional generative AI could provide general explanations for any questions that you may ask and even provide suggestions, given a thorough verbal prompt of your situation.

However, with AI agents, using only the command of “improve my personal finances,” the agent would identify the different aspects of your individual financial situation that need attention and break them down into actionable steps to achieve the assigned task.

The agent could, for instance, analyze your spending habits across accounts, research investments that you can make, identify forgotten subscription services, and even readjust your strategies based on your current situation. Given proper access, it would do all of this without further human intervention.