From chatbots to colleagues: How agentic AI is redefining enterprise automation

"Chatbots once symbolized digital transformation - those polite text boxes on corporate websites and service portals promised to make support smarter and cheaper. The addition of generative AI (genAI) to the tools in recent years has made them seem more natural in conversations, but they're still just automated answer engines. Now as 2025 comes to an end, traditional chatbots are beginning to look like relics of an earlier era."

"A new wave of agentic AI is taking shape: systems that not only converse but also reason, plan, and act within enterprise workflows. These agents are not assistants that talk; they are digital colleagues that think. Across industries, companies are reengineering their operations to harness this new capability. They're discovering that agentic AI isn't simply an upgrade to chatbots - it's a redefinition of how digital work gets done."

""Traditional chatbots," he said, "were basically decision trees - if keyword X, then response Y." They worked well for FAQs and appointment scheduling, but their world was bounded by the script. Even when connected to large language models such as GPT-5, most chatbots still lack deep knowledge of a company's data or business context. "They're language-driven responders," Flores explained. "They talk, but they don't think or act.""

Traditional chatbots served as scripted, language-driven responders that handled FAQs and simple scheduling but lacked deep knowledge of company data or business context. Generative AI improved conversational naturalness but did not add reasoning or action capabilities. Agentic AI introduces systems that reason, plan, and act inside enterprise workflows, connect to company data via retrieval-augmented generation, and wield tools like CRMs and workflow platforms. Organizations are reengineering operations to integrate agents that carry missions, names, and tool access. The shift reframes digital work, governance, and the human-machine partnership toward proactive, contribution-oriented automation.

Read at Computerworld