Imagine a world where artificial intelligence, or AI, completes tasks autonomously by planning, reasoning and taking specific actions.
According to today's leading innovators, that future isn't too far away; it's becoming a reality through agentic AI.
As the University of Cincinnati's corporate crossroads and startup launchpad, the team at UC's 1819 Innovation Hub keenly follows developments in agentic AI. Building partner Microsoft recently led a discussion on AI agents from the heart of the Cincinnati Innovation District.
Here are the takeaways.
According to Microsoft, agentic AI is "an autonomous AI system that plans, reasons and acts to complete tasks with minimal human oversight." Current AI forms - think ChatGPT and DeepSeek - typically require human prompting to complete assignments. Agentic AI flips that on its head.
Five key pieces of agentic AI were identified during Microsoft's event at the 1819 Innovation Hub. Below, we'll expand upon each:
- Autonomy: Agentic AI can perform tasks beyond exactly what's assigned, requiring significantly less human oversight.
- Reasoning: Through contextual clues and sophisticated forms of decision-making, AI agents select potential solutions on their own.
- Adaptable planning: When conditions shift, agentic AI can alter its plans accordingly.
- Context understanding: AI agents can comprehend human speech with ease.
- Action enabled: Agentic AI delivers tangible solutions by acting whenever it deems itself capable of doing so.
So, how could AI agents be incorporated into both the workplace and our daily lives? Here are some realistic use cases:
- Travel booking: Let's say you're interested in going on vacation and have a set budget and trip preferences. Tell an AI agent about your interests and limitations, and it could suggest destinations, hotel and flight choices and stops on your itinerary. It could even book the trip for you, autonomously doing the work that you would've had to perform otherwise.
- Customer support: While AI has already been incorporated into this field, it'll become more helpful. Expect AI-powered customer support to diagnose issues independently, provide tailored solutions, craft tickets and escalate issues to humans when necessary.
- Data analytics and reporting: Rather than humans needing to read through huge datasets to produce reports, AI agents will be able to independently collect insights and compile them into presentations and graphics.
- Supply chain management: Agentic AI will be able to continuously monitor the market for supply chain disruptions, optimize inventory levels and logistics and predict when equipment will either give out or need maintenance.
Companies throughout the Cincinnati innovation ecosystem are using the top AI tools for business to boost efficiency - with AI agents, processes will become even quicker and smarter.
While agentic AI comes with many pros, its benefits will vary across different fields. Below are five work situations when Microsoft predicts AI agents could help:
As time goes on, breakthroughs in AI and quantum computing will radically transform the way we work. The use cases mentioned above are just a few examples of agentic AI, but more will appear as the technology advances and both businesses and customers grow more accustomed to it.
Featured image at top: Man working in a high-tech lab. Photo/Gorodenkoff via Adobe Stock
