What is agentic AI, and why is everyone calling it the next frontier?
AI is evolving from answering questions to autonomously planning, executing, and self-correcting complex multi-step workflows.
The answer
Agentic AI represents a paradigm shift from reactive chatbots to autonomous systems that plan, act, observe results, and iterate. Unlike traditional AI that generates single-pass outputs, agentic workflows loop through observation, planning, execution, and refinement - using external tools, APIs, and web searches along the way. OpenAI formalized this with its Responses API and Agents SDK in 2025, Anthropic added tool use and computer use to Claude, and Google's Gemini pushed long-context stateful multi-step tasks. Open frameworks like LangGraph and Microsoft's AutoGen enable developers to build planners, executors, and reviewers. The agentic AI market hit $5.1 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $47 billion by 2030.
Source: MIT Sloan
- agentic AI
- workflows
- autonomous agents
More from AI & Machine Learning
- What radical question did Alan Turing ask in 1950 that launched the entire field of artificial intelligence?
- Can a machine fool you into thinking it's human - and does that mean it's truly intelligent?
- What happened at a small Dartmouth workshop in 1956 that gave artificial intelligence its name?
- How did a 1958 invention called the Perceptron convince people that machines could learn like brains?
- Could a 1966 chatbot really make people believe they were talking to a therapist?
- What was the first robot that could 'reason' about its own actions?