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Just when you thought you had a handle on the latest technology innovations and acronyms—machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI)—another one has cropped up and is making a splash in a few industries.
In fact, agentic AI—those AI systems built around the same language processing capabilities as services like ChatGPT, but able to carry out more complex, goal-oriented tasks with minimal human intervention—is already being used for customer service, and may have broader applications as the technology matures.
For example, agentic AI can interact with websites, fill out forms, collect and submit information and make payments. In Forbes’ “Forget ChatGPT: Why Agentic AI Is The Next Big Retail Disruption” Bernard Marr says the e-commerce sector makes a great testbed for agentic adoption.
“As you would expect from the ripe possibilities, there are already many use cases for agentic AI in e-commerce,” Marr writes. “Shopping bots are becoming available that are capable of hopping between online retailers and searching for the best prices, deals and promotions for their users. Salesforce has released its Agentforce platform, which lets retailers build AI agents that can interact with their systems.”
Agents can also help companies dynamically price products and services by tracking the competition. Marr says they could even come up with novel new metrics that they could use to set prices more efficiently, taking into account factors humans might overlook. “Amazon already gives its merchants the ability to have AI dynamically set prices,” he points out, “so adding agentic functions for even more powerful automation is a no-brainer.”
Proactively Resolving Issues
Agentic AI’s growth and adoption trajectory are both expected to be fast and furious. In fact, Gartner predicts that agentic will autonomously resolve 80% of common customer service issues without human intervention by 2029, which in turn will reduce operational costs by 30%.
“Agentic AI is poised to revolutionize the way service interactions are conducted. While previous AI models were limited to generating text or summarizing interactions, agentic AI introduces a new paradigm where AI systems possess the capability to act autonomously to complete tasks,” the company explains in a recent press release.
Both customers and organizations will leverage this technology to automate interactions through the use of AI agents and bots, it adds, fundamentally reshaping the relationship between service teams and their customers.
“Agentic AI has emerged as a game-changer for customer service, paving the way for autonomous and low-effort customer experiences,” said Gartner Senior Analyst Daniel O’Sullivan. “Unlike traditional GenAI tools that simply assist users with information, agentic AI will proactively resolve service requests on behalf of customers, marking a new era in customer engagement.”
The Road Ahead for
Looking further ahead, Barr writes about how agentic AI will be just as integral to e-commerce as previous transformational waves, like machine learning and the mobile internet. “It could even turn out to be a significant step towards the long-term goal of developing generalized AI,” he adds. “AI that can learn how to do just about any task, much like a human, rather than just the tasks it was created for.”
And while agentic and generalized AI are not the same thing, today’s agentic tools give us a glimpse of how that future could play out. “Businesses that want to be a part of this future will have to overcome technological, cultural, ethical and regulatory challenges,” Marr adds. “Perhaps the biggest challenge will be working out how this new breed of machine workers fits in with human talent.”
