No-tech Friday: What is “Agentic,” anyway?

I originally planned to spend this week’s post breaking down the complex technical terms currently being thrown around with reckless abandon. Specifically, I wanted to define “Agents.”

But I won’t.

Because just last week, another blogger wrote the definitive piece on the subject, and I strongly recommend you read it instead. It does a fantastic job of explaining not just what agents are, but the logic the author used to get to that explanation—which is often more helpful than the definition itself.

Read more: Agentic AI: What’s an agent anyway? by Kraftisms.

Instead, let’s take a step forward and talk about the suffix that’s currently glued to everything: Agentic.

The “Agentic” Everything

What do people mean when they talk about agentic advertising, agentic commerce, or agentic publishing? And why is it usually just a silly, buzzwordy proposition?

The easy answer is: “Driven by agents instead of humans.” Here is what that looks like in the wild:

• Agentic Shopping: Purchases executed by agents on behalf of consumers who can’t be bothered to click through a website full of pop-ups and distractions.
• Agentic Advertising: A DSP (Demand Side Platform) agent talking to an SSP (Supply Side Platform) agent to create an insertion order for a media planner who stopped logging into dashboards years ago.
• Agentic Publishing: Content created from raw information gathered by agents monitoring world events for a managing editor who is tired of waiting for junior writers to turn in a draft.

The Reality Check

Ignore my latent cynicism for a moment. The broader points here are twofold:

1. Every “agentic” anything is just an existing process, task, or workflow.
2. Every “agentic” anything is commissioned by a human in a specific, existing business role.

“Agentic” is just a high-fashion word for “Automatic.” Truly. Don’t expect magic. Don’t believe vendors who try to convince you that the future will be fundamentally different because it’s agentic. It won’t be. The business models remain the same. The cost of running an army of agents will soon be comparable to the cost of humans, as will the overhead of managing them.

It feels like the 1980s “informatization” revolution all over again—new tools, same goals, and a lot of expensive new labels for things we’re already doing.