Agentic AI

Existing unstructured data analytics systems rely on experts to write code and manage complex analysis workflows, making them both expensive and time-consuming. To address these challenges, we introduce AgenticData, an innovative agentic data analytics system that allows users to simply pose natural language (NL) questions while autonomously analyzing data sources across multiple domains, including both unstructured and structured data. First, AgenticData employs a feedback-driven planning technique that automatically converts an NL query into a semantic plan composed of relational and semantic operators. We propose a multi-agent collaboration strategy by utilizing a data profiling agent for discovering relevant data, a semantic cross-validation agent for iterative optimization based on feedback, and a smart memory agent for maintaining short-term context and long-term knowledge. Second, we propose a semantic optimization model to refine and execute semantic plans effectively. Our system, AgenticData, has been tested using three benchmarks. Experimental results showed that AgenticData achieved superior accuracy on both easy and difficult tasks, significantly outperforming state-of-the-art methods.

Autonomy, from the Greek autos (self) and nomos (law), refers to the capacity to operate according to internal rules without external control. Autonomous vehicles (AuVs) are therefore understood as vehicular systems that perceive their environment and execute tasks with minimal human intervention, consistent with the direction indicated by the SAE levels of automated driving. However, recent research and deployments increasingly showcase vehicular capabilities that, while not contradicting autonomy, are not entailed by it, including ambiguous goal handling, purposeful social engagement, external tool use, proactive problem solving, continuous learning, and context-sensitive reasoning in unseen and ethically salient situations, enabled in part by multimodal language models. These developments reveal a gap between technical autonomy and the broader social cognitive functions required for human-centered mobility, which are more precisely captured by the notion of agency. Therefore, rather than adding increasingly elaborate modifiers to "autonomous," we introduce agentic vehicles (AgVs) and suggest that autonomy and agency are intertwined but conceptually distinct: if autonomy concerns what to do and how to do it (task executions under internal rules), agency pertains to why to do it and what else can be done (goal-directed, adaptive actions). We present autonomy and agency as orthogonal yet synergistic dimensions with co-development implications. Vehicle agency marks a novel dimension of mobility service intelligence, heralding vehicles as purposeful actors in society.

Collaborative agentic AI is projected to transform entire industries by enabling AI-powered agents to autonomously perceive, plan, and act within digital environments. Yet, current solutions in this field are all built in isolation, and we are rapidly heading toward a landscape of fragmented, incompatible ecosystems. In this position paper, we argue that interoperability, achieved by the adoption of minimal standards, is essential to ensure open, secure, web-scale, and widely-adopted agentic ecosystems. To this end, we devise a minimal architectural foundation for collaborative agentic AI, named Web of Agents, which is composed of four building blocks: agent-to-agent messaging, interaction interoperability, state management, and agent discovery. Web of Agents adopts existing standards and reuses existing infrastructure where possible. With Web of Agents, we take the first but critical step toward interoperable agentic systems and offer a pragmatic path forward before ecosystem fragmentation becomes the norm.

Agentic AI builds upon Generative AI (GenAI). It constitutes the next major step in the evolution of AI with much stronger reasoning, learning, and interaction capabilities that enable more autonomous behavior to tackle complex, long-running tasks. Since the initial release of ChatGPT 3.5, Generative AI has seen widespread adoption, giving users firsthand experience. However, the distinction between Agentic AI and GenAI remains less well understood. To address this gap, our survey is structured in two parts. In the first part, we compare GenAI and Agentic AI using existing literature, discussing their key characteristics, how Agentic AI remedies limitations of GenAI, and the major steps in GenAI's evolution toward Agentic AI. We also distinguish between early Agentic AI aiming at reasoning and interacting and the increasingly emerging paradigm of self-improving Agentic AI that operates continuously and learns from its experiences by updating itself. This section is intended for a broad audience, including academics in both social sciences and engineering, as well as industry professionals. It provides the necessary insights to comprehend novel applications that are possible with Agentic AI but not with GenAI. In the second part, we deep dive into novel aspects of Agentic AI, including recent developments and practical concerns such as defining agents. Finally, we discuss several challenges that could serve as a future research agenda, while cautioning against risks that can emerge when exceeding human intelligence.

The rapid advancement of AI technology has led to widespread applications of agent systems across various domains. However, the need for detailed architecture design poses significant challenges in designing and operating these systems. This paper introduces a taxonomy focused on the architectures of foundation-model-based agents, addressing critical aspects such as functional capabilities and non-functional qualities. We also discuss the operations involved in both design-time and run-time phases, providing a comprehensive view of architectural design and operational characteristics. By unifying and detailing these classifications, our taxonomy aims to improve the design of foundation-model-based agents. Additionally, the paper establishes a decision model that guides critical design and runtime decisions, offering a structured approach to enhance the development of foundation-model-based agents. Our contributions include providing a structured architecture design option and guiding the development process of foundation-model-based agents, thereby addressing current fragmentation in the field.