Smart agents, smarter business: Experience the power of agentic AI

We stand on the brink of a transformative moment in business history.

The journey from GenAI pilot projects to fully integrated, enterprise-wide deployments has accelerated greatly over the past two years, yet many organizations have been slow to make decisions, unable to scale and too reactive to change.  

Now, agentic AI offers a solution. It refers to networks of autonomous, goal-driven software agents that collaborate, learn from feedback and execute complex workflows — freeing up humans to focus on creative, strategic and high-value work.

Agentic AI is not just another technological advancement. It represents a profound shift in how organizations operate, compete and grow — and understanding its full potential begins by recognizing the strategic imperative to embrace this pivotal new phase in the evolution of GenAI.

Why agentic AI is so important

For executives, it’s no longer about whether they will use AI in their organizations. What matters is how swiftly and strategically they embrace it.

“The next wave of GenAI innovation is expected to center on agentics,” stated NTT DATA’s landmark Global GenAI Report just a few months ago. Not even halfway through 2025, the technology is capturing the attention of organizations and industries around the world.

Unlike static systems of the past, agentic AI keeps evolving to become more sophisticated over time and perform tasks with a higher degree of accuracy. Smart AI agents can reason, automate routine tasks and streamline resource allocation, speeding up product development and service delivery.

Agent-driven personalized assistance is improving both employee and customer experiences, while the real-time insights and data-driven recommendations that smart AI agents provide are informing better business decisions.

This creates valuable opportunities for business leaders, and those who act decisively will secure a competitive advantage through the benefits realized by agentic AI.

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Advanced concepts call for visionary leadership

As you start your journey with agentic AI, you will encounter advanced new concepts.

Imagine a workplace where cognitive agents, or “augmented employees,” take care of routine tasks, proactively provide personalized knowledge and dramatically boost productivity and employee satisfaction.

Think about the impact of “personal executive agents” — sophisticated digital assistants that manage your schedule, filter out distractions and deliver insights right when you need them.

Meanwhile, digital twins are evolving to be driven by agents that can virtually replicate key processes (in factories, supply chains or even organizational structures) and continuously run “what if” scenarios, letting you stress-test changes before they hit production.

Organizations can also establish internal app stores or marketplaces of certified, reusable AI agents. Teams can accelerate time to value by browsing, trialing and deploying these prebuilt agents — for invoice approvals, customer sentiment analysis, DevOps monitoring and other objectives.

And then there’s “sentient experience orchestration,” or SXO, which refers to emotionally intelligent agent networks that tailor customer interactions to improve satisfaction and loyalty in a way that feels truly personal.

Importantly, you will need a comprehensive ecosystem to integrate smart AI agents with each other and into your organization, with a focus on collaboration and scalability. When these agents work together across business functions and units, you benefit from enterprise-wide operational synergy.

Think at the industry level

To get to grips with these new ideas, your organization needs visionary leadership that sets the tone for the rest of the enterprise. But to make a difference, these ideas need to be translated into precise, industry-specific applications. That’s where the real magic happens.

Understanding the unique challenges of your industry is critical to deploying smart AI agents effectively. Fine-tuning your agentic AI strategy to sector-specific demands will lead to greater operational efficiency and a greater degree of relevance in your market.

For example, NTT DATA developed a conversational multiagent system to support personalized, high-value customer interactions for an insurance company. We designed the system to have different smart AI agents focused on specific customer requests — for life-insurance details, general policy information and the company’s health and wellness program, among others — or acting in a supervisory capacity. To deliver a seamless, efficient service, all these agents work in harmony.

Keep ethics and governance in mind

Smart AI agents can revolutionize processes and outcomes in any industry — product design and optimization in manufacturing, product recommendations in retail, loan processing in banking, treatment plans in healthcare and emergency response systems in the public sector, to name but a few use cases.

However, the immense potential of agentic AI also brings significant ethical responsibilities. Leaders must champion transparency and clearly communicate the abilities and decision-making processes of autonomous agents to build stakeholder trust.

Establishing robust governance and accountability frameworks is therefore an important step in aligning agentic AI with your organizational values and maintaining oversight and compliance.

Even the smartest agents must operate under human supervision. Embedding human-in-the-loop checkpoints ensures that critical decisions are validated by domain experts, edge-case errors are caught before they propagate, and unintended bias or drift is corrected in real time. This hybrid model combines the speed and scale of autonomous agents with the judgment and contextual awareness of human stakeholders, preserving trust, safety and quality during deployment.

And, throughout this process, you have to prioritize privacy and security by implementing vigilant data protection and stringent protocols — all of which can be daunting without expert help.

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Your roadmap to agentic AI success

Practical preparation is essential for your organization to fully realize the benefits of agentic AI.

A phased implementation of the technology starts with a comprehensive assessment to identify the highest-impact opportunities for autonomous intelligence within your operations.

To assess your progress as you advance, establish clear benchmarks and measurable goals. Use pilot programs strategically to validate your methods and refine your processes as you lay the foundation for scalable, organization-wide deployment of agentic AI.

Also take note of the following imperatives:

• Form cross-functional teams using a modular and flexible architecture to explore, champion and manage your agentic AI initiatives.
• Invest strategically in training programs and cultural transformation to get your workforce ready.
• Develop a partnership with an expert technology provider experienced in deploying agentic AI at scale.

Take the next step

At NTT DATA, we see agentic AI as the defining business opportunity of this era. You can reimagine the capabilities of your organization, amplify the potential of your workforce, innovate faster and foster sustainable growth.

Our Smart AI Agent™ Ecosystem draws on our end-to-end and full-stack value proposition to address this transformation comprehensively — through strategic consulting, implementation and system integration, industry-specific use cases, proprietary agent orchestration platforms, managed operations and private AI capabilities.

By combining our deep industry expertise with leading-edge technology and strong partnerships, we’re helping our clients to implement agentic AI securely and at scale, and we’re ready to support visionary leaders who are boldly guiding their organizations into the future.

The era of intelligent enterprise is here. Are you prepared to lead the way?

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