Agentic AI is the umbrella term for AI systems that work independently towards a goal – they plan, use tools, carry out multi-step tasks and come back with a result instead of an answer.
Where a single AI agent is one system, agentic AI describes the direction of the whole field: from conversations to delegation. The systems can book, research, write, compare and act – and they are beginning to collaborate with one another in chains where the human only sees the start and the end.
That shifts the central question from 'what can AI answer?' to 'what may AI carry out?'. The answer requires a new kind of division of labour: clear mandates, built-in checkpoints and a decision about where responsibility lies once the machine has acted.
In practice
Start small and visible: let agents take over well-defined, low-risk processes – research, monitoring, preparation – and keep the approval of everything outward-facing with people until the experience has been built up.
How to explain it to management
»Agentic AI means we no longer just have to formulate questions – we have to formulate mandates.«
The basic concept is explained in the entry on AI agents – and you can try your hand at them at my AI workshop.