What is Agentic AI ?

What Do We Mean by “Agents” in AI?

In AI, an agent is a system that can perceive its environment, make decisions, and take actions to achieve a specific goal.
It’s not just a model that generates answers — it’s an active problem-solver that interacts with its surroundings, learns from feedback, and adapts over time.

What is Agentic AI?

Agentic AI is a new generation of artificial intelligence designed to go beyond reactive responses and work proactively to achieve goals.
Unlike traditional AI, which only produces an output when prompted, Agentic AI operates with a sense of agency — meaning it can observe, reason, plan, and act without needing constant instructions.

An Agentic AI system typically follows this cycle:

1. Perception – It gathers information from its environment, which can be user inputs, documents, APIs, sensors, or databases.

2. Reasoning – It analyzes that information to decide what steps are needed to reach a goal.

3. Planning – It creates a logical sequence of actions.

4. Action – It executes those actions using available tools, APIs, or workflows.

5. Learning & Adapting – It adjusts its approach based on feedback or new data.

Think of it as the difference between:

• A search engine (traditional AI) that only gives you results when you type a query

• And a digital assistant (agentic AI) that not only finds the results but formats them into a report, schedules a meeting to discuss them, and sends reminders — all automatically.

Why it matters for professionals:
Agentic AI can automate multi-step workflows, integrate with business systems, adapt to changing needs, and run continuously — making it a valuable tool for tasks like market research, customer support automation, sales outreach, project tracking, and data reporting.