Agentic AI: The Complete Guide to Understanding AI That Actually Takes Action

A no-BS explanation of what agentic AI really is

The AI world is buzzing with a new term: Agentic AI. But what exactly does it mean? Is it just another tech buzzword, or is there something fundamentally different about this approach to artificial intelligence?

The HR Assistant

Let me start with a real-world example using HR assistant. A HR assistant for a team that could answer simple policy questions like:

• “How many vacation days do I have per year?”
• “What’s the policy on sick leave?”

The obvious solution? Build a Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) chatbot that pulls information from the policy PDFs and answers questions.

But here’s the thing: This isn’t agentic AI.

According to Anthropic’s framework for building effective agents, AI applications fall into two main categories: workflows and agents. Our simple Q&A chatbot is actually just a workflow.

The Evolution: From Workflows to True Agents

Let’s trace the evolution from simple chatbots to true agentic AI:

Level 1: RAG-Based Chatbot (Workflow)

• What it does: Answers questions by retrieving information from documents
• Characteristics: Reactive, simple Q&A