Most of us have encountered artificial intelligence in the form of the chatbot. You ask a question and it gives you an answer. The exchange is low stakes because even if the AI is wrong the consequences are usually limited.
Agentic AI breaks that model because it acts on its own. Give it a task and it will search, compare, decide and execute across digital systems on your behalf. The difference is that a chatbot recommends a flight while an agentic AI pays for it and sends you the confirmation.
Until now, mainstream use of these agents has been seen as some way off. But the speed at which they are being deployed in China is bringing that timeline forward much faster.