For technology adopters looking for the next big thing, “agentic AI” is the future. At least, that’s what the marketing pitches and tech industry T-shirts say.

What makes an artificial intelligence product “agentic” depends on who’s selling it. But the promise is usually that it’s a step beyond today’s generative AI chatbots.

Chatbots, however useful, are all talk and no action. They can answer questions, retrieve and summarize information, write papers and generate images, music, video and lines of code. AI agents, by contrast, are supposed to be able to take actions on a person’s behalf.

But if you’re confused, you’re not alone. Google searches for “agentic” have skyrocketed from near obscurity a year ago to a peak earlier this fall.

A new report Tuesday by researchers at the Massach

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