Most still think that AI Agents and Agentic AI are the same thing But both are entirely different architectures, let me explain... Recently, Cornell University released a very impressive research paper pointing out the difference between AI Agents and Agentic AI. They shared how the future will be led by the profound development of Agentic AI and how it moving steadily. To understand their difference, let us learn the notable difference written in their research paper: 📌 AI Agent – Autonomous software programs that perform one specific task. – High autonomy within that domain, with optional memory or tool cache. – Executes prompt-triggered goals, adapting only within its confined scope. 📌 Agentic AI – Systems of multiple AI agents collaborating to achieve complex, multi-step objectives. – Learns from outcomes, shares episodic/task memory & context across agents. – Goal-initiated workflows that decompose and adapt dynamically. 📌 Functional Domains • AI Agents → Internal enterprise search, email filtering + prioritization, autonomous scheduling, etc. • Agentic AI → Multi-agent research assistants, adaptive game AI, intelligent robotics coordination, etc. 📌 The Key Difference AI Agent = Think of them like a Thermostat: Responsible for a single task, which is to set a temperature Agentic AI = Think of them as a Smart control center: ingests weather forecasts, energy prices & user schedules to orchestrate lighting, appliances & power. 📌 Architectural Evolution AI Agent → Perception → Reasoning → Action (Beginning) Agentic AI → Specialized agents + Shared context + Multi-agent collaboration + Orchestration + Persistent Memory (The future) 📌 Key Differences: – Trigger: Prompt (AI Agents) vs. Goal (Agentic AI) vs. Static Prompt (Generative AI) – Flexibility: Fixed (AI Agents) vs. Adaptive (Agentic AI) vs. Pre-trained (Generative AI) – Memory: Optional (AI Agents) vs. Shared + episodic (Agentic AI) vs. Short-term (Generative AI) – Adaptation: Tool tweaking (AI Agents) vs. Outcome-based learning (Agentic AI) vs. None (Generative AI) Though the Paper highlights a few key differences between Agentic AI and AI Agents, But AI Agents in general have evolved and now support highly functional memory, Multi-agent and tool use collaboration utilizing protocols like MCP and A2A. We talked about the 5-level of AI Agent progression in our latest book and even made a good post about it. 🔗 You can check the book here: https://amzn.to/4irx6nI 🔗 You can check the post here: https://lnkd.in/gq_2ggkE Save 💾 ➞ React 👍 ➞ Share ♻️ & follow for everything related to AI Agents | 32 comments on LinkedIn