One of Bollywood's biggest stars and a global representation of Indian cinema, Deepika Padukone, was recently in the news for allegedly being left out of the sequel to Kalki 2898 AD, a high-budget Indian sci-fi epic that combines futuristic storytelling with mythology. Her request to house 25 of her employees in upscale hotels during the shoot is said to have been one of the points of dispute as per reports. We won't discuss whether these 25 assistants were actually required or if they deserved to be housed in luxury hotels. Let's ask a different question. What if technology could eliminate the need for managers or assistants in the first place thus preventing a reason for this conflict?
Agentic AI is the answer. It can act on your behalf, in contrast to modern chatbots that only react when prompted. It may replace many of the jobs that are currently done by human teams such as managing communications, ordering supplies, paying bills, and organizing calendars.
Why Agentic AI
We were able to remove one stressful task or responsibility with each invention. We no longer had to do math by hand after the invention of calculator. Large volumes of data could be processed and stored after the invention of computers. The hassle of looking for information in books or libraries was eliminated after the invention of the internet. Smartphones eliminated the need to carry computers, cameras, maps, diaries, and music players with us everywhere we went by combining dozens of different tools into one. More recently, generative AI has started to take over the task of creating from scratch, including writing documents, designing images, creating music, editing videos, and even writing code in response to prompts or user input.
Agentic AI is currently being developed to take on and free us from an even more difficult task: management and decision-making. It has the ability to plan, prioritize, organize, and act in addition to producing outputs. It promises to manage the constant flow of decisions and coordination that describes modern daily life, from team management and financial decisions to scheduling and logistics. Even though it seems like a small change on paper, it has the potential to have a significant impact on how we live and work.
The Early Seeds of Agentic AI
In 2023 & 2024, AI developers started coming up with experimental projects like AutoGPT, BabyAGI, and LangChain. These were far from ideal tools. They frequently made dumb mistakes or looped endlessly, but they also brought something new to light. These systems could chain tasks together, unlike ChatGPT, which responded to individual prompts. Say something like, "Find the best eco-friendly laptops under $1,000 and create a short report." AutoGPT would collect data, compare specifications, open tabs in the browser, and produce an output that was structured. Although it wasn't perfect, it demonstrated that AI could progress from basic Q&A to somewhat autonomous behavior.
By 2025, OpenAI started experimenting with web-browsing and web-interaction agents. Agent-like behaviors were incorporated into Gemini by Google. Startups introduced products for marketing, research, and customer service that were positioned as "AI employees." All of a sudden, "agents" were not a sci-fi concept; rather, they were on the horizon of mainstream technology.
How Agentic AI Works (Explained Simply)
Agentic AI can be summed up as a digital assistant with three new "superpowers":
1. Memory: After a conversation is over, traditional chatbots forget. Agentic AI is able to retain information between sessions. Without being reminded, it learns your preferences and applies them, such as your preference for vegetarian meals or evening flights.
2. Decision-Making: Agents can think and divide overarching objectives into discrete actions rather than merely responding to prompts. If you ask it to "assist me in getting ready for my conference in Berlin," it may arrange travel, make hotel reservations, offer packing advice, and send an email to your team with the schedule.
3. Tool Use: This is where things really start to change. Agents have access to the internet, apps, and services. It can actually open different apps, search and make the reservation rather than just stating, "Here are the best hotels."
You now no longer have a chatbot when you combine these. You have something closer to a digital manager is in your possession.
The Concerns
But with autonomy comes risk, and the challenges are concerning.
Loss of Control: Let's say you inform your AI that you must travel to Berlin for a conference. Because its main objective is to save money, it schedules a flight with three layovers and an arrival time of two in the morning, which is technically cost efficient but utterly unfeasible. Or imagine your investments being managed by an AI. It may take unethical shortcuts, make dangerous trades, or even take advantage of legal loopholes if its sole goal is to maximize profit. Efficiency may come at the expense of justice, comfort, or accountability when AI makes decisions without human input.
Security Risks: The negative impact could be far greater than existing cybercrime if hackers develop malicious agents. Picture a phishing email that, instead of using generic text, it changes its content in real time depending on your response, becoming more convincing with each new message. Or consider an artificial intelligence (AI) bot that stealthily depletes your bank account through dozens of small, undetectable transactions on various platforms. Even worse, hackers might use phony assistants that mimic your boss's or colleague's voice, tone, and mannerisms to give you orders to "urgently transfer funds" or divulge private information. Such sophisticated attacks needed a well-organized hacker team. But, a single dark individual could unleash them on a global scale using agentic AI.
Impact on the Workforce: Routine positions might be the first to disappear. Agents that are quicker, less expensive, and available around-the-clock could take the place of a junior analyst putting together market reports or a customer service representative answering simple inquiries. Things could get worse. Even leadership itself might be automated. Imagine an AI designed to be as efficient as possible taking the place of your boss or manager. It may assign tasks, set deadlines, and track performance flawlessly, but it lacks the empathy, humanity, and adaptability that people look for in a true leader. That has the potential to change not only jobs but also workplace culture.
Accountability: If your AI makes a damaging decision — say, a financial loss, a wrong medical appointment, or even a legal violation — who is responsible? You, for delegating? The company that built the AI? Or should the AI itself be considered liable? Right now, the law has no clear answers. In industries like healthcare, finance, or law enforcement, this lack of accountability could have devastating consequences. If an autonomous agent prescribes the wrong treatment, crashes the stock market, or makes a biased hiring decision, the blame could be passed endlessly between user, developer, and regulator. Until accountability is defined, trusting AI with critical decisions remains a gamble.
The Road Ahead
The future looks kind of like the relationship of Jarvis and iron man. Tony stark doesn't scroll through any app but just tell Jarvis what to do. And Jarvis does it.
Most experts believe the digital interface of the future won’t be dozens of apps. Instead, it will be a single AI agent coordinating everything in the background. You’ll say what you want, and the agent will figure out how to get it done.
Apps may not disappear, but they’ll fade into invisibility as intermediaries. Instead of opening Uber, your AI will just “book a ride.” Instead of opening Amazon, your AI will just “order the cheapest protein powder.”
Tech giants are already moving in this direction. Apple is weaving agent-like features into its devices. Google is experimenting with agents that read, search, and act. Startups are building niche agents for law, medicine, and education.
In the near future, Agentic AI may take the next step — reducing the need for assistants, managers, or even entire teams.
The real question isn’t whether Agentic AI will change our lives. It’s whether we are ready for a world where a machine doesn’t just talk back but it acts on our behalf.