by Shashi Bhargava, on Feb 19, 2025 8:52:28 PM
Key takeaways from the blog
- Rule-based automation falls short of fulfilling Industry 4.0 business requirements.
- Agentic AI is autonomous and seamlessly automates multi-step scenarios.
- Agentic AI independently steers business processes to achieve higher productivity.
With the rising demands of Industry 4.0 or smart manufacturing, businesses are using digital technologies and services to transform their business landscape. As businesses seek to reduce waste and improve productivity and efficiency, automation solutions that sufficed yesterday find something amiss in the changed world order. Rule-based Robotic Process Automation or RPA was once sufficient to handle the onslaught of increasing workloads. As the business landscape continues to evolve, the frequent process stops for referring to human supervisors seem like showstoppers in dynamic business environments. AI-driven innovations along the automation continuum, such as Agentic AI, target this dire requirement necessitated by the Industry 4.0-led business evolution. Here, Industry 4.0 seems to steer the automation journey from RPA to Agentic AI.
What is Agentic AI?
Agentic AI is a specialized stream of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that performs goal-oriented tasks in an autonomous manner. It orients its approach as per real-time updates received from the business ecosystem in a highly context-rich environment, and all without human intervention.
During yesteryears, multi-step business automation requirements were handled using different approaches, mostly surface integration, workflows, and APIs. These approaches were devoid of adaptability to the changing ecosystem. Agentic AI, which can intelligently automate and orchestrate other automation capabilities, thus lies at a higher rung in the automation continuum.
Is Agentic AI transformation Technology-led or Business-led?
Agentic AI is purely a business requirement-led evolution along the automation continuum. As technology continues to facilitate business requirements, and businesses smartly leverage better automation solutions, it results in a “chicken or egg first” kind of paradox. What came first?
Here, the Responsible AI proponents leverage Agentic AI with a strategic focus on the demands of Industry 4.0, which is basically the use of digital technologies and services to transform industry processes. The resulting people-process-technology integration generates an upward-spiralling synergy and evolution for a sustained business advantage.
Multi-step business problems were automated in the past through integration using workflows and APIs. However, with the changing requirements of the Industry 4.0 landscape, the Agentic AI springboard has become a business necessity.
Agentic AI and seamless orchestration
Agentic AI is more sophisticated and autonomous as compared to rule-based bots and agents. They take independent decisions and actions without having to rely on human supervision.
Agentic AI delegates tasks to its sub-agents on the fly and orchestrates the overall outcome in order to quickly close the original task. Agentic AI exhibits autonomy at each decision-making node and proactively adapts to the best action and next-best actions.
The inherent adaptability of Agentic AI driven automation solutions allows them to autonomously take charge of more complex scenarios. In a way, Agentic AI is a few steps behind before it metamorphosizes into, the yet distant, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).
Simply put
Industry 4.0 and AI have paved the path for the maturing trajectory of the automation continuum. As the goal-oriented Agentic AI adapts to its continuously changing ecosystem, it easily automates multi-step scenarios, thus further improving business productivity and efficiency, much beyond the purview of contemporary automation solutions, such as RPA.
