Just about all the major intelligent automation platforms available today are featuring agentic AI as the primary technology powering business automation. According to a new report (PDF) from global consultancy KPMG, more than half of senior leaders are “signaling a decisive move towards operational integration of agentic AI by actively planning deployments of AI agents from trusted providers.
The report gives a short summary of the cognitive activity that takes place in agentic AI that distinguishes it from previous versions of automation technology. The iterative loop that enables an agent to perceive data, evaluate it based on variable forecasts and constraints, make decisions based on those evaluations and then analyze outcomes and learn from them, is the hallmark of agentic AI, according to the report.
When deployed, the report continues, agents can be purpose-built to address distinct challenges and fall into several categories that organizations can combine in various ways to form a “distributed intelligence layer” that can be applied in different ways across different business verticals.
While some business leaders have expressed skepticism recently as ROI continues to be elusive, KPMG—along with most automation providers—remains bullish on the technology’s potential.
“As adoption expands, the ability of agentic AI to orchestrate cross-functional operations is becoming a key differentiator,” the report’s authors write. “By combining autonomous decision-making with continuous availability and real-time responsiveness, agentic AI unlocks a new frontier of operational excellence.”