Agentic AI — The Third Wave of AI Explained

Author(s): Jennifer Wales

Originally published on Towards AI.

AI has evolved to a much larger extent. It is no longer limited to providing insights from data or generating new content. The third wave of AI is here, and it is a much more advanced version of it — Agentic AI.

These are AI systems that can complete tasks similar to humans apply their reasoning capabilities and make decisions without much human intervention. If you are interested in the field of AI or making a career in AI, then understanding this third wave of AI is mandatory.

This article will help you understand everything you need to know about Agentic AI in detail.

Understanding the three waves of AI

The Markets and Markets research firm has predicted the global AI market to reach $310 billion by 2026 exhibiting a huge CAGR of 39.7%. Three important phases lead to this rapid growth in AI.

These three phases or three waves of AI have been transforming the way we live and work.

· The first wave popularly known as predictive AI helped users analyze data, identify trends and patterns, draw actionable insights, and improve decision-making.

· The second wave was brought by Generative AI, and it took the world by storm. This revolutionary technology helped users create new, unique, original, and highly realistic content including texts, images, audio, and video. DeepSeek is one of the latest additions in this wave that has shaken the entire global market.

· The third wave corresponds to Agentic AI which is slowly but gradually gaining traction in the business environment. It demonstrates a huge technical advancement by introducing AI systems capable of working independently and assisting other AIs.

The best AI certifications cover a wide range of topics including all three waves of AI to help you fully understand AI and boost your AI career.

Agentic AI — What is it?

Agentic AI refers to AI systems that can work autonomously and perform even highly complicated jobs without much human intervention.

While traditional AI often requires a specific set of instructions for each task, Agentic AI is an advanced model that can make decisions, take actions, and learn from their experiences to improve over time and achieve the desired outcome.

What makes them different is their capabilities to go beyond just answering user queries or generating different types of content. These agents can efficiently interact with other agents, make decisions on their own (in limited scenarios), and complete tasks with little to no human supervision.

How do they work?

The working of Agentic AI involves the use of several technologies that make it capable of doing its job. It includes:

· Machine learning

It helps AI to learn from data and experiences and improve its decision-making ability over time.

· Natural language processing

NLP technology allows these agents to understand and interpret human language so that they can efficiently interact with users and process information from text sources.

· Large Language Models (LLMs)

LLMs offer the AI agents the knowledge base they need to generate human-like texts. LLMs have an important role to play in understanding context, reasoning, and communicating effectively.

· Contextual understanding

It helps agentic AI to interpret information based on their surrounding context instead of isolation. This process involves analyzing words, situations, user history, and other relevant factors to make a decision.

· Advanced Decision-Making frameworks

These frameworks help the AI to evaluate options, prioritize tasks, allocate resources, and predict outcomes. This helps enhance the overall decision-making process and take appropriate actions.

Benefits and Opportunities of Agentic AI

Agentic AI brings a lot of benefits and opportunities to the world. It increases the efficiency and productivity of a lot of tasks because of its capability to tackle complex decision-making processes autonomously and free up worker’s time to focus on more strategic work.

Not just that, it can also help serve clients better by offering responsive and personalized interactions. So now, clients can expect them to understand their requirements better and deliver the required solutions whenever they want with the same efficiency and consistency.

Also, when it comes to the opportunities they provide, they can be used across all industries including robotics, education, retail, automation, and more.

Real-World Applications of Agentic AI

Here are a few ways Agentic AI can be used across various domains:

· Autonomous Vehicles — self-driving cars can use agentic AI to perceive their surroundings in a better way to make decisions. They can learn from every trip to improve their driving.

· Supply Chain Management — they can optimize supply chains by predicting demand, managing inventory, and optimizing delivery routes.

· Cybersecurity — organizations can use it to detect threats and vulnerabilities by analyzing network activity. They can also respond to breaches autonomously.

· Healthcare — AI agents can help diagnose illness, customize treatment, and enhance patient care management.

· Customer Support — Agentic AI offers personalized, instant answers to questions, and guides them through processes.

Apart from these, they can be highly useful for email management, personal assistants, integration with productivity tools, and more. So, opportunities and applications are enough, provided how you use them.

Conclusion

Agentic AI or the third wave of AI technology, will prove to be a transformative technology as we move ahead in the future. Their self-working capabilities can be used across various industries and operations which have already started impacting business globally. The future of agentic AI is bright, so don’t miss the opportunity and make your career brighter as well. Enroll in the best AI certifications today.

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Published via Towards AI