AI agents in the enterprise (part 1) – we need definitions

Vendors have a new growth term — and they’re not shy of telling you about it.

Enter AI agents. Or worse — agentic AI.

Suddenly, agents are everything, everywhere, all at once. But despite the volume of frothy hype and breathless press releases, there seems to be a lot of confusion about what it really means to build AI-based agents. Many different types of technology — from the incremental to the outlandish — are now sold as agentic, making it difficult for companies to know what exactly they should be looking for and where the risks lie. For this reason, I decided to wade into the vast slurry of content and sift out a framing that can help people get a conceptual grip of the emerging agentic landscape buried beneath the torrent of hype.

Never mind the benefit — feel the hype

This need for a map of the landscape is becoming critical — because ...