Definition
Agentic Automation
Automation that uses autonomous AI agents to execute end-to-end processes, including reasoning, decision-making, and self-correction, without scripted workflows.
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Related terms in Agents & Automation
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 AIAI 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.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.Agentic GatewayA middleware layer that sits between AI agents and the external APIs or services they need to call, handling authentication, payment routing, and access control so the agent operator never has to manage individual credentials. Mitchell Jones built Lava as an agentic gateway: install one MCP, load a wallet, and your Claude Code or Codex instance can call financial data, LLM providers, enrichment tools, and blockchain APIs without separate signups or secret key management. The gateway abstracts the plumbing so humans can focus on directing agents rather than provisioning them.