AI Agents vs Agentic AI

AI (artificial intelligence) is up there with the best when it comes to acronyms and fancy words that are designed to make you feel like you have no clue about what is happening. It is part of the allure, but Antire is here to help.

So, what is the difference between an AI Agent and an Agentic AI System?

Let’s say it this way: AI Agents are reliable single-task doers, while Agentic AI Systems are like overachieving project managers who can’t resist running the whole operation.

AI Agents: The specialists

Think of an AI Agent as a colleague that is really good at one thing

• Give them a prompt 
• They call a tool (or two)
• They hand back an answer

Fast, accurate, and efficient, like asking the finance guy to make you an Excel Pivot table without any further explanation.

This is perfect for repetitive jobs with clear rules, where speed and cost matter more than creativity. For example, read through the 64-page PDF that you have dreaded for weeks, but the AI Agent can now summarize in a few bullet points. 

Agentic AI Systems: The managers

This is what you get if you take a bunch of the agents and tell them to form a committee (but in a good way).

Suddenly you got:

• Roles, debates, and critiques
• Plans branching out as in a spider diagram
• Workflows that can fix itself

This is perfect for:

• Complex projects that change as you go
• Research tasks that need both detail and perspective
• Building something where you want AI to think before you need to

So that is the gist of it. But, as with everything these days, it comes in a few different levels:

1. Level 0: Direct tool calls – No thinking, just doing
2. Level 1: React in a loop – Single step helpers
3. Level 2: Planner + Executor – Short memory but still capable
4. Level 3-4: Multi-agent orchestra with memory and critique. Basically, systems that argue with themselves so you don’t have to

So which do you need?

Well, it depends on what your purpose is.

• If you need a quick and reliable answer; Agent
• Multi-step process with dependencies; Agent + Planner
• Evolving project with creativity; Agentic AI System

In short, AI Agents is like the junior who nail the task list, while Agentic AI is like hiring a whole department that runs strategy meetings in the background. The agents should be measured on accuracy, speed, and cost per call, while The Agentic AI’s is better measured on quality per cycle, time to solve or reduced risk.

Regardless, Antire got you covered. We can sell you the hammer, aka the AI Agents, or we can set you up with the whole crew, aka the Agentic AI Systems.

Get in contact with Øyvind Spørck—our Chief AI Officer and a leading expert in applied machine learning.