How AI agents and agentic AI differ from each other

Some vendors may overpromise, underdeliver, and sell systems that act unpredictably, Dhamani adds. “I see a lot of people marketing agentic AI, when in reality, it’s really just a chatbot with some RAG,” she says. “It’s a chatbot just retrieving some documents, or calling a calculator, and that’s not an agentic experience.”

If an AI vendor can’t explain how its technology works, that’s a red flag, says Constant Contact’s Gutierrez. “It’s worth clarifying whether you’re buying a true agentic system or just a workflow agent dressed up in buzzwords,” he adds. “The biggest danger in this space is obfuscation — it’s not always intentional, but it is common to oversell what the technology actually does.”

Without a full understanding of how agents and agentic AI work, CIOs and other IT leaders could also fail to realize the risks involved and the oversight needed, Dhamani says.