Has there been a technology innovation in recent memory that has engendered more wildly divergent thinking than agentic AI? We’re hard-pressed to think of one. Depending on who you talk to or what you read, AI agents—systems based on gen AI foundation models that can act in the world and execute multistep processes—will lead to a utopia of productivity. Or displace huge swaths of the labor force. Or lead to robots running the world. Or provide everyone with a superpower. Or all of the above. To prepare for this uncertain future, executives will need to strip away the emotion from the conversation. Promises are everywhere; critical thinking, however, is in short supply. The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier: The potential of agentic AI certainly appears significant, especially as the technology continues its torrid pace of improvement. It is poised to transform knowledge work and reshape the nature of competition.
