Definition

Agentic AI

AI that acts as an agent: it interprets a goal, plans the steps, uses tools like browsers, code, or APIs, and adjusts based on what happens until the task is done.

How founders on the podcast use it

AI systems that take actions and complete multi-step tasks on someone's behalf rather than only answering questions.

He Quit Venture Capital to Build an AI Workforce for Patients

AI systems that take actions and make decisions, not just generate content.

"The Agent Did It" Won't Hold Up in Court

AI systems that take multi-step action toward a goal rather than only generating a response. Lirio describes its platform as behavioral science plus agentic AI.

Your Doctor Gets 18 Minutes. Netflix Gets 1,095 Hours. This CEO Is Fixing The Gap

AI that takes actions, makes decisions, and completes multi-step tasks autonomously, rather than just generating text responses.

AI Just Closed 40% of Your Tickets Without You

AI systems that can take actions in the world, not just generate text. A scheduling agent that books a meeting on your behalf is agentic.

The AI EA Flex

AI systems that operate autonomously to complete multi-step tasks, make decisions, and take actions - moving beyond single-turn Q&A toward persistent, goal-directed workflows.

The AI Analyst That Never Sleeps: Burak Karakan of Bruin

AI systems that proactively execute workflows and monitor changes.

Stop Building, Do This First

Hear it on the podcast7 episodes

He Quit Venture Capital to Build an AI Workforce for Patients "The Agent Did It" Won't Hold Up in Court Your Doctor Gets 18 Minutes. Netflix Gets 1,095 Hours. This CEO Is Fixing The Gap AI Just Closed 40% of Your Tickets Without You The AI EA Flex The AI Analyst That Never Sleeps: Burak Karakan of Bruin Stop Building, Do This First

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Related terms in Agents & Automation

Agent AssistThird Way's tool that supports live human agents during calls.Agent HarnessA set of components — context, governance, tools, and infrastructure — provided to an LLM so it can do specialized work effectively. The harness is what turns general-purpose AI into a trustworthy production resource.Agent swarmMultiple AI agents running simultaneously on different tasks, often with sub-agents.AgenticAI that takes actions and completes tasks, not just answers questions.Agentic AutomationAutomation that uses autonomous AI agents to execute end-to-end processes, including reasoning, decision-making, and self-correction, without scripted workflows.Agentic commerceShopping where an AI agent handles discovery, comparison, and sometimes checkout, rather than the customer browsing a store directly.Agentic economyAn economy where autonomous AI agents transact, negotiate, and execute on behalf of businesses.Agentic FrameworkA software architecture in which autonomous digital agents handle discrete, well-defined tasks within a larger workflow — passing outputs to the next agent, escalating to human review when thresholds are exceeded, and operating continuously without manual triggering. Softheon's average customer runs 1,300 such agent processes. Eugene Sayan filed a patent for agentic frameworks applied to enterprise healthcare applications in 1998 — more than two decades before the current AI wave made the architecture mainstream.

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