Agentic AI refers to AI systems that go beyond answering questions to autonomously planning and executing multi-step tasks, using available tools and data to work toward a defined goal – pausing for human guidance when decisions require judgement that only a person can provide.

Conversational AI responds to what you ask; agentic AI takes what you ask and goes to work – autonomously executing the steps, using the tools, and completing the task, rather than simply describing how it might be done.

Agentic AI is affecting how humans work by replacing the repetitive, time-consuming analytical and operational tasks that prevent skilled people from doing the higher-value work that requires human judgement, creativity, and accountability. We regard this as being similar to the history of the computing phenomenon in general.

Opactiv HALO Agentic AI is tightly controlled in terms of which agentic Skills are available to it. It cannot decide to add new Skills and start doing unwanted things. Additionally it is only ever able to see the data that you as the owning user can see, and is implemented within a network and operating sandbox.

‘Skills’ in agentic AI are the specific, pre-built capabilities such as querying a database or calling an API that an agent can invoke as tools to complete the steps of a task, much like the specialised abilities a human professional draws on to get their work done.