Generative AI vs. Agentic AI vs. AI Agents: What Everyone Needs to Know

Author(s): Poojan Vig

Originally published on Towards AI.

You ask an AI for a quick veggie biryani recipe.A second AI figures out the perfect grocery list and cooking schedule.A third books an Instamart slot, orders your ingredients, and pays via UPI.

That’s Generative AI, Agentic AI, and AI Agents handing off tasks seamlessly. But do you know exactly which AI does what — and why knowing the difference matters?

Generative AI: Creates fresh, original content based on patterns learned from massive datasets.

Agentic AI: Strategizes, plans, and iterates toward a defined goal — without needing constant nudges from humans.

AI Agents: Actively sense their environment, make decisions, and execute actions in the real (or digital) world.

Generative AI is all about creating new content — whether it’s text, images, videos, code, or even music — by learning patterns from vast amounts of existing data. Think of it as an exceptionally creative friend who’s read a million recipes, poems, and books, and now has an endless imagination to remix them in new ways.

You provide a prompt or a question, and Generative AI produces something unique yet familiar by connecting the dots from what it has learned.

“Can you suggest a quick veggie biryani recipe?”

Generative AI, such as ChatGPT or any other LLM, instantly comes up… Read the full blog for free on Medium.

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Published via Towards AI