Q&A: What is agentic AI today, and what do we want it to be?
Computer scientist Phillip Isola cuts through the hype to explain how AI agents work and what the future might hold for this rapidly advancing technology. MIT Associate Professor Phillip Isola explains what agentic AI is, how these systems are used, what applications they are best suited for, and what the future may hold for this exploding technology. Adam Zewe | MIT News Publication Date : June 30, 2026 Press Inquiries Press Contact : Abby Abazorius Email: abbya@mit.edu MIT News Office : "Agentic AI is AI that takes actions in the world," says Phillip Isola.
Key Takeaways
- Credits : Image: Adobe Stock Previous image Next image The deployment of automated software systems called AI agents has recently exploded.
Q: What is agentic AI and how is it different from generative AI models like ChatGPT and Claude?
- The word "agent" is just a brand name.
It usually means AI that is going to help people interact with an application, a website, or the physical world.
- Those wrappers might be specific tools that agent can use, and those tools depend on the application.
Maybe the agent has access to a calculator so it can solve math problems, or maybe it has access to a more complicated hard drive and operating system so it can remember a firm's financial data and past business negotiations.
- These environments are hard to model, so often the agent must learn by trial and error.
- As long as it can check the answer, the AI agent can perform this trial-and-error loop until it figures out a good strategy.
MIT Associate Professor Phillip Isola explains what agentic AI is, how these systems are used, what applications they are best suited for, and what the future may hold for this exploding technology. Computer scientist Phillip Isola cuts through the hype to explain how AI agents work and what the future might hold for this rapidly advancing technology. Adam Zewe | MIT News Publication Date : June 30, 2026 Press Inquiries Press Contact : Abby Abazorius Email: abbya@mit.edu MIT News Office : "Agentic AI is AI that takes actions in the world," says Phillip Isola.
Credits : Image: Adobe Stock Previous image Next image The deployment of automated software systems called AI agents has recently exploded. A November 2025 report by MIT Sloan School of Management and Boston Consulting Group found that 35 percent of surveyed businesses had already deployed AI agents, while another 44 percent planned to implement agentic AI soon. Q: What is agentic AI and how is it different from generative AI models like ChatGPT and Claude?
A: Agentic AI is AI that takes actions in the world. These actions could be a physical action, like robotic manipulation, or a digital action, like booking a flight. On the other hand, we think of generative AI as making up stories, poems, art, and images, rather than taking actions for us.
For more details please read the original article at MIT News AI.
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