What ChatGPT was to consumer-ready AI, Agentic AI is becoming for enterprises. The rapid rise of AI Agents from companies like Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, etc. is proving to be a tantalizing use case for enterprise adoption. According to a recent survey, 99 % of enterprise developers are either exploring or actively developing AI Agents because of limitations with many existing tools.
The Rise of Agentic AI
If you were building a factory to produce widgets, would you have one general-purpose machine to make every part ? No, you would have purpose-built machines – each designed to complete a specific task with precision, efficiency, reliability, etc. And you would have people overseeing the processes and operation of each machine. That’s the logic behind Agentic AI. In businesses doing product development, advertising, sales, market research, etc. – older tools or Generalized AI often fall short. To move forward today, the need is for specialized agents built for the job. You want the AI equivalent of a well-oiled production line – intelligent tools, each performing a specific task and effectively contributing to improving outcomes.
AI Agents For Marketing : Where Data Meets Speed
One area where Agentic AI is already proving transformative is marketing , especially with product innovation. This is because of the issue “ we don’t know what we don’t know ” – and in many cases people don’t want to know ! Further, with valuable knowledge scattered across departments, reports, vendor files, emails, databases, etc. – a lot of information is available inside the organization and the associated ecosystem that is not being leveraged. To get past this, imagine if you could make inquiries by asking questions to a system (ie: talk to that data). For example, ask an AI Agent questions like you would a colleague – “ What types of flavors or profiles have historically performed well in our snack category ?” or “ Which visuals create premium perceptions to increase sales among Gen-Z ? ” or “ What scenarios should be considered to grow our markets ? “, etc. This is where AI Agents can play a critical role. When connected to a structured and coherent data set, a Marketing Agent can do more than respond – it can analyze, synthesize and generate insights. Think of it as a Google-like interface connected directly to your company’s proprietary knowledge base and other data sources, built with the power to create, not just search.
AI Agents In Action : From Insight to Innovation
Now take it a step further whereby each person on a creative product team (the designer, strategist, copywriter, etc.) brings domain expertise and an understanding of the consumers and the market. Since human intuition alone can’t sift through thousands of datapoints, AI Agents powered by large datasets and trained on real consumer behavior, can complement and enhance human knowledge with the ability to quickly crunch large datasets, spot patterns and turn insights into suggestions or new viable concepts. In addition, think of the benefits if – You didn’t have to start a project from scratch the next time the team has to brainstorm a new product or campaign ? What if instead of whiteboards and sticky notes, you came to the meeting armed with 40 fully visualized, brand-relevant ideas – already aligned to consumer trends ? This is what AI Agents can do for you. Agentic AI doesn’t replace creativity – it accelerates it, supercharging human ingenuity with data-backed precision.
The Infrastructure That Makes Agentic AI Work
Of course, none of this works without a solid data foundation. To build trustworthy, effective AI Agents, the organization must ensure the data is available and training occurs so the system has insights and context to meet or exceed expectations. This is frequently a challenge since many companies’ data ecosystems are fragmented. For example, marketing data lives in one system, consumer feedback is in another, retail trends are somewhere else, etc. To get past this, the information to AI Agents needs to be available or harmonized to get the best results.
To unlock the value of AI Agents, businesses need to have a single source of truth with a structured, clean and continuously updated view of their universe. That doesn’t mean centralizing everything into a monolithic system – it means ensuring systems are connected and insights are actionable. This shift from siloed data to connected insights is what enables AI Agents to become very useful and better enable learning – to know what works for your brand and your audience as well as contribute to achieving your goals.
Human + Agentic AI = Better Innovation
While there is some anxiety about AI replacing jobs, the real future is being good at collaboration and innovating for impact to have more ways to improve outcomes. Agentic AI won’t replace people – it will work alongside them. Innovation and creativity can now move at the speed of consumers and new opportunities. But only if we build the systems, infrastructure and trust to support it. Agentic AI isn’t science fiction – it’s the new purpose-built capability powering the creative economy.
July 23, 2025 By Steve Phillips / CAIL – CAIL Innovation commentary
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