We don’t have a version of Murderbot, the autonomous security unit, but do we have agentic AI? Is the so-called autonomous AI here yet? With all the hype around AI, it’s easy to believe so.
No, so if a vendor says they’ve got agentic AI to solve all your problems and do all the work, it’s not true. There are vendors whose AI may have limited decision-making capabilities and label it as agentic. Cocounsel, a well-known service for legal and accounting professionals, states it’s GenAI with agentic workflows.
There isn’t a standard definition for agentic AI. It’s essential to know what you’re buying, what it’s capable of, and whether it will streamline your business. You don’t want a chatbot that gives customers automatic discounts or AI that hallucinates code.
What’s the current best-case use for more autonomous AI? Document research and processing and customer service. We know that legal, tax, and accounting departments handle reams of documents and need to find specific items quickly within their massive stash of documents.
AI is perfect for that, and if it doesn’t retrieve exactly what you want, you know it and can ask again. Customer service has successfully utilized chatbots for years. They’re more sophisticated than they were, but half the time, I end up speaking to a human.
Companies using more autonomous AI for customer service still need a human to double-check or answer complicated questions. I cringe at the thought of dealing with an autonomous chatbot about a complex issue.
Author: Kris Keppeler, a curious writer who finds technology fascinating. Follow her on X (Twitter) @KrisNarrates, on Medium.com @kriskeppeler, and LinkedIn.
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