The deployment of automated software systems called AI agents has recently exploded. A November 2025 report by MIT Sloan School of Management and Boston Consulting Group found that 35% of surveyed businesses had already deployed AI agents, while another 44% planned to implement agentic AI soon.

To understand the fundamentals and potential effects of these increasingly popular tools, MIT News spoke with Phillip Isola, an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), who studies the intelligence AI agents possess, as well as the underlying models and mechanisms that power agentic AI systems.

Q: What is agentic AI, and how is it different from generative AI models like ChatGPT and Claude?

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