GLOSSARY
Agentic AI
AI systems that take initiative — perceive, plan, act, verify — rather than respond to one-off prompts. Distinct from generative AI, which produces a single output per query.
Agentic AI describes systems that operate over multi-step goals: they observe state, plan a sequence of actions, call tools, observe the results, and decide what to do next — without a human prompt at every step. Compare a chatbot (one-shot) with an AI agent that drafts an email, sends it, reads the reply, updates a CRM, and books a follow-up.
Why it matters
In B2B trade, agentic AI is what lets software actually run an end-to-end workflow — onboarding a buyer, shepherding an invoice from issue to cash, escalating an exception to a human only when its confidence drops. The alternative — a human in every loop — is what trade AI is trying to remove from the critical path.
Related terms
- AI Agent
- Tool Use
- Model Context Protocol