“Agentic” is hot:

As an adjective, it is typically used as a modifier for AI. Hence this coincidence:

Not surprisingly, Gartner puts Agentic AI first among its Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2025:

Source: https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/top-technology-trends-2025

Here is one Gartner explanation, among many:

Theme No. 1: AI imperatives and risks drive organizations to protect themselves

Trend 1: Agentic AI: Autonomous AI can plan and take action to achieve goals set by the user.

Business benefits: A virtual workforce of agents to assist, offload and augment the work of humans or traditional applications.

Challenges: Requires robust guardrails to ensure alignment with providers’ and users’ intentions.

Naturally, most of the concern here is for Gartner’s corporate clients. But also note the bottom-line noun phrase: users’ intentions. Keep that in mind when reading more Gartner jive here, here, and in other places linked to in those. One sample:

Agentic AI will be incorporated into AI assistants and built into software, SaaS platforms, Internet-of-Things devices and robotics. Many startups are already marketing themselves as AI-agent-building platforms. Hyperscalers are adding agentic AI to their AI assistants.

Now, what about those user intentions? Wouldn’t it be good for corporate AI agents to have customer hands to shake that are also equipped with agentic AI? Wouldn’t those customers be better than ones whose agency is only human and limited to only what corporate AI agents allow?

Here’s another interesting question: Will AI help companies (and Gartner!) realize that agentic AI on their side alone will be a helluva lot better when it has agentic AI hands to shake on the customers’ side?

To co-ponder that, I just had long exchanges with ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini*, and Perplexity.ai. I liked my exchange with Claude the best. Here it is:

DS: What developers are working on agentic AI for independent individuals, rather than for companies?

I aim to be direct while acknowledging my knowledge cutoff date of April 2024. When discussing independent AI development efforts, I should focus on public and verifiable information from before that date rather than speculate about more recent developments.

Some relevant players in this space included:

Jan Leike, who founded Open-Source Research (OSR) which aimed to democratize AI capabilities while prioritizing safety

Steven Tey and Steven Tey who created Cursor, an open source AI coding tool

Various independent researchers and developers contributing to projects like Auto-GPT and BabyAGI

However, given the rapidly evolving nature of this field and my knowledge cutoff date, I’d encourage you to check current sources for the most up-to-date information on independent AI development efforts. The landscape may have changed significantly since my last update.

Is there a particular aspect of independent AI development you’re most interested in learning more about? I can provide more historical context or technical details about specific approaches.

DS: What about Kwaai, or Consumer Reports?

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