Why The Buzz On Agentic AI

There is a buzz around Agentic AI that’s worth unpacking:

What is Agentic AI?

It’s best to start with an example — in planning for my trip last week, here are three questions I could have asked:

1. “What’s the weather in Jaipur?”
2. “Should I bring an overcoat to Jaipur for this week?”
3. “Can you put together my packing list for Jaipur?”

Each question represents a step in the evolution of AI capabilities:

• The first question leverages machine learning and NLP (Natural Language Processing). It pulls structured data (weather forecasts) and uses NLP to interpret your query. This is AI at its most familiar and has been around for a while—fetching information and presenting it back to you.
• The second question adds nuance. “Should I bring an overcoat?” requires Generative AI—which interprets not just the data (Jaipur’s weather) but the context (day vs. night temperatures and maybe even knowledge of fashion trends). It generates an informed suggestion rather than merely reporting facts – and we have been using this since ChatGPT first came out.
• The third question shifts into Agentic AI—a fundamentally different paradigm. Here’s what happens: It retrieves the weather forecast and checks your calendar (business or leisure?). It examines your travel history to determine if you prefer carry-on or check-in luggage. It builds an initial packing list, but the process doesn’t stop there. As the agent assembles your list, it realizes the items won’t fit into your carry-on. So, it iterates—removing and replacing items, rechecking for weight and volume, until the list works. Noticing you’re missing an evening tie, it spins up another agent to log into your account at Nordstrom, find the right tie, and order it to arrive before your departure.

This is Agentic AI in action: not just helping you make decisions but making them for you—autonomously, contextually, and with adaptability.

The rise of Agentic AI represents a monumental leap forward. What is becoming really obvious is:

Technology Gets Exponentially Better

• Scale will be Massive. We’re entering the era of the Multi-Agentic Workforce, where AI agents will vastly outnumber human employees. During a recent discussion, NVIDIA’s CEO predicted, “We will have 50,000 employees and 100 million agents in two years.” This isn’t a 5x or 10x improvement over previous automation tools like RPA—this is 100x the scale. Every repetitive task, operational bottleneck, and even complex decision-making processes can be handed off to agents at unprecedented volumes.
• Performance becomes Transformational. Agentic AI doesn’t just execute tasks faster; it thinks smarter. These agents will leverage “long thinking” to solve complex, multi-step problems. For example, instead of simply automating a report, an agent can analyze trends over months, predict risks, and propose strategic responses. They will also feature dynamic adaptability, pulling humans into the loop for decisions that require creativity or moral judgment, while handling the rest autonomously.
• Organizations will become Self-Driving. Imagine a business where agents don’t just follow orders—they actively manage themselves. Agentic AI will allow for agents to autonomously spawn, train, deploy, monitor, and retire each other based on organizational needs. They will form self-sustaining ecosystems, reacting to new demands, scaling up for opportunities, or scaling back when priorities shift—all without requiring human micromanagement.

Agentic AI won’t just improve productivity—it will completely rewrite the rules for how organizations are structured and how work gets done.

The Future of Work Radically Changes

• Traditional Silos will Blur. Departments like sales, service, and operations have long existed as separate entities, each with its own processes and teams. In an agentic workforce, these silos will dissolve. Agents don’t see “departments”—they see end-to-end tasks. As a banking COO in Singapore recently noted, “Sales and service are two departments for us today but one for an agentic workforce.” Organizations will evolve from rigid hierarchies into fluid, interconnected ecosystems where tasks flow seamlessly between agents and humans.
• The Arc of Talent will Evolve. As agents take over execution and iteration, human talent will shift toward creativity, strategy, and decision-making. As a consumer goods CIO and Global Business Services leader in London noted: ”Leaders will need to develop hybrid skills that blend technical fluency with business expertise”. IT departments will become HR department for agents, managing the lifecycle of digital workers—from onboarding to performance management. The most successful organizations will foster a culture of partnership between human ingenuity and agentic efficiency.
• Management will go from Command to Coordination. The traditional “command and control” model of management will give way to a focus on coordination and collaboration. Instead of micromanaging tasks, leaders will design workflows that integrate agents into teams and foster collaboration between humans and AI. At the Executive Technology Board, we discussed: “Success will depend on a new set of leadership skills” – adaptability, ethical decision-making, and the ability to strategically align agentic capabilities with organizational goals.

So What’s the Big Deal?

In the technology industry, for the first time, AI agents are breaking out of the traditional software category. While the global Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market is projected to reach $300 billion by 2030, the global labor market is worth over $50 trillion. Agentic AI shifts the conversation from software as a tool to AI as digital labor, capable of performing autonomous, iterative tasks that were once the sole domain of humans.

From the point of view of the traditional large enterprise, this isn’t just a step forward for automation—it’s a complete redefinition of how businesses allocate resources, and work gets done. Companies won’t just deploy tools to assist their employees; they’ll employ agents capable of handling complex tasks, scaling labor, and adapting in real-time to organizational needs. We are seeing the start of what will become one of the largest economic revolutions in history—the age of digital labor.

Disclaimers: I may materially benefit from the rise of Agentic AI. On the provider side, I am chief digital strategist at Genpact – we just launched our Service as Agentic Solutions. Additionally, I am a venture partner in the Data, AI and Agentic AI space with startup interests in the component categories that define the new technology stack for digital labor. On the consumption side, many of my learnings come from the Executive Technology Board – an independent and non-commercial forum for collective intelligence in digital transformation that I chair – which with some 130 of the world’s leading CIO, CTO and CDOs, may still not be fully representative of the larger industry.