People keep talking about “agentic” AI. Here’s what that means.

• You have heard of Generative AIbut agentic AI may seem a little less familiar.
• Major industry players are working on AI agents for what some say marks the third wave of AI.
• But what exactly is agentic AI? Here’s a quick look at the technology everyone’s talking about.

Generative AI We’ve been talking about technology for a while now, but listen to your favorite business podcast and you’ll probably hear a different phrase: “agentic” AI.

So what’s the difference?

The two are closely related. There could not be agentic AI without generative AI. Definitions vary, but in general, agentic AI refers to AI technology that can perform agent-like behavior and autonomously complete complex tasks on your behalf.

Companies working on AI agents say they are destined to one day become digital colleagues or assistants to human workers in fields ranging from health care and from supply chain management to cybersecurity and customer service.

Here’s how some big tech companies explain the concept:

• from Nvidia definition says that agentic AI “uses sophisticated reasoning and iterative planning to autonomously solve complex, multi-step problems.”
• IBM said Agentic AI is a system or program with “agency” that can “make decisions, take actions, solve complex problems, and interact with external environments beyond the data on which the models learn.” automatic (ML) system have been trained.
• Microsoft According to AI agents, “they range from simple chatbots to co-pilots to advanced AI assistants in the form of digital or robotic systems capable of executing complex workflows autonomously.”

Some leaders in the field say agents are ushering in a new frontier in AI.

“In just a few years, we have already seen three generations of AI,” Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce said The New York Times earlier this month. “First there were predictive models that analyze data. Then came generative AI, driven by deep learning models like ChatGPT. Today, we are experiencing a third wave, defined by intelligent agents able to independently manage complex tasks.”

Salesforce, which launched its Agent force suite earlier this year, announced plans to use more than a billion AI agents for businesses by the end of next year.

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google recently said the company has “invested in developing agent-plus models” over the past year. (He defined agentic AI as being able to “better understand the world around you, anticipate multiple steps, and act on your behalf, under your supervision.”) The company made agentic AI a major axis of its development. Launch of Gemini 2.0 this month.

OpenAI plans to launch an AI agent named “Operator” in January that would be able to use a computer on behalf of a person to do things like write code or book flights, Bloomberg reported last month, citing two people familiar with the matter.

The company introduced its latest AI model, o3, on Friday as the final announcement of its 12 days of “Shipmas” campaign.