Prescriptive AI has been permeating the IT support industry for decades. The time of, “This input = that output” with AI is gone. Generative AI has become “mainstream” and human-like interactions with AI is no longer a thing of science fiction or theory. It’s reality.
Generative AI chat bots are not the future. They are a means to an end. GenAI is a river that intersects, weaves and flows through an entire organization, all dumping into the ocean. Agentic AI (also known as “AI agents”) is the ocean.
What is the difference between Generative and Agentic AI? This is something IT leaders must know if they want to be prepared for the future of technology and technology support.
Let’s say a city wants to brighten up their streets. They decide that murals are the way to go. An artist comes in and takes an old decrepit building and turns it into a full scale mural of something that has meaning to that city. Think Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, CA or the French Broad River in Asheville, N.C. The whole view is changed. This is Generative AI.
Agentic AI is the planner, project manager, artist coordinator and painter. Whereas a prompt can generate the charming and impressive piece of art by the artist on the side of building, it can’t identify the need for that art, the purpose, best location, what paint to use for the building material, how each canvas will work together across the city to tell a specific story to create an experience and specific emotion for the view. That is the fundamental difference between Generative AI and Agentic AI.
Agentic AI acts by itself, not requiring specific prompts (input) to produce an output. It works across the entire eco-system, leveraging natural language processing to enable output.
Everest Group said, “Agentic AI is a new evolution that enables end-to-end task execution through natural language-based inputs. It goes beyond retrieving information or increasing knowledge and can take action with minimal human oversight.”
Here’s how Stephne Xu with McKinsey sums up Agentic AI:
“Broadly speaking, ‘agentic’ systems refer to digital systems that can independently interact in a dynamic world. While versions of these software systems have existed for years, the natural-language capabilities of gen AI unveil new possibilities, enabling systems that can plan their actions, use online tools to complete those tasks, collaborate with other agents and people, and learn to improve their performance. Gen AI agents eventually could act as skilled virtual coworkers, working with humans in a seamless and natural manner.”
Generative AI has been all the buzz in the IT and tech support space. Now, the conversation will pivot to Agentic AI.
Gartner states, “Today’s AI models perform tasks such as generating text, but these are ‘prompted’ — the AI isn’t acting by itself. That is about to change with agentic AI, or AI with agency. By 2028, 33% of enterprise software applications will include agentic AI, up from less than 1% in 2024, enabling 15% of day-to-day work decisions to be made autonomously.”
It is worth noting that nowhere does it state “Agentic AI” will replace the entire IT support industry. On the contrary, it will work in partnership with the humans of IT Support teams while autonomously removing friction that often burdens the support team and pulls attention away from more meaningful work.
Matt Beran, industry analyst with InvGate, says, “AI is freeing up time in IT support to shift from reactive to proactive mode. But it’s not going to replace it. IT environments are full of fragile and chaotic systems. We are going to be doing training and updating the AI inputs all the time to get good results...AI will never replace human tech support, but augment and empower and free us up to do higher value service and support.”
Leveraging the technology advancements to drive better and more efficient outcomes for our teams, customers and organizations is a must for technology leaders. This means we can’t roll out Generative AI chatbots and call the job done.
Leveraging this technology to introduce Agentic AI into our organization roadmap will lead to IT support teams that truly spend time doing things that matter to the experience of customers and stakeholders.
The call to action is just that: Don’t stop with Generative AI chatbots. Plan for a future that doesn’t yet exist and stay curious. Agentic AI is the future, today. Tomorrow is yet to be determined.