The agentic AI revolution: Experts explain key business trends

AI agents are everywhere. From virtual customer service bots to marketing automation tools, tech innovators are scrambling to launch agents that promise faster service, smarter decisions and greater adaptability. 

"AI agents are poised to become part of everyday life. Google's Gemini helps plan your week, while OpenAI's voice assistants manage tasks through natural conversation," says Jonathan Reeve, Vice President, APAC, Eagle Eye. "A wave of startups and innovators are already building AI agent solutions for specific business needs using foundation models from leading providers."

Agentic AI, customer experience and loyalty

Experts agree the marriage of AI,  retail and marketing makes a lot of sense. Eagle Eye, for example, already has a powerful AI-driven personalisation engine and other predictive systems, which thrive on ingesting and processing data intelligently. 

In addition to being able to ask questions, AI agent helpers can make decisions, compare prices and steer people to where to shop. This stands to change how retailers reach customers.

"Consider this scenario: a customer asks their AI assistant, "Where can I unlock behind-the-scenes content as a member?" If your program's benefits can't be found and understood by that assistant, you'll be excluded from consideration," Reeve explains.

"AI agents, personal shoppers and deal-hunting assistants will change how brands promote their products and offers. The way large language models and agents process information will likely lead to a reorganisation of marketing strategies and loyalty structures."

According to The Australian Loyalty Association (ALA) Founder and Director, Sarah Richardson, AI innovation is now giving brands the ability to deliver personalisation at scale, tailoring offers and experiences to each individual in real time across channels.

"This level of engagement also helps brands to analyse behavior patterns and anticipate what customers might need or want before they even know themselves," she adds.

"Agentic AI will be most transformative to the loyalty landscape. Having an agent that can answer all your queries with relation to your membership as well as past purchase information helps brands to get on the front foot with customer expectations. Emerging technologies like voice assistants and visual search are also creating new pathways into loyalty ecosystems, so there's plenty of innovation that AI will bring!"

Billy Loizou,  APAC Area Vice President at Amperity agrees agentic AI is poised to reshape how brands compete for consumer attention globally.

"Imagine a world where your next purchase isn't selected solely by you, but by an AI agent acting as your personal shopper. Need an autumn outfit? Your AI agent instantly scours online stores, considering your size, style preferences, budget, event theme, and even the weather forecast to deliver perfectly tailored recommendations," he says.

Data integrity critical in the age of agentic AI

Loizou notes success in the era of AI agents will hinge on a brand's ability to deeply understand customer preferences and anticipate future needs. 

"Brands that excel will consistently surface the most relevant recommendations, predicting and meeting their customers' evolving desires and behaviours," he explains. "To succeed in this future, brands  must fundamentally transform how they collect, unify, and leverage customer data."

To prepare for a future where AI agents traverse the world wide web, Loizou recommends brands invest in their data infrastructure now. 

"Companies that excel at managing customer information will  create a positive data cycle: the more effectively they use data to personalise interactions, the more engagement they'll generate, leading to richer datasets and increasingly tailored experiences. Such precision will also help brands craft offers capable of navigating past AI gatekeepers," he adds.

Derek Slager, co-founder and CTO, Amperity, agrees. He stresses even the most advanced AI agent is only as good as the data it's built on. 

"At their core, AI agents use data to make decisions across systems, based on constantly changing variables and conditions. However, if the underlying customer data is spread across disconnected tools, fraught with duplication or siloed in different formats, the agent is doomed to be ineffective," he explains.

"Fragmented, outdated or inconsistent information can make the best tech unreliable. To work effectively, AI agents need data foundations that are accurate, connected and governed. Without them, outputs become unreliable and trust breaks down. Meanwhile, expectations keep rising."

Agentic AI impacting multiple industry sectors

Anthony Cipolla, AI Lead with data-led asset management solutions firm COSOL is already seeing the asset-centric industry landscape getting AI-ready.

"Verticals that rely on Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) are undergoing a revolution whereby traditional high manual effort required by humans to establish and maintain quality digital twins and master data will be rapidly replaced with semi-to-fully-autonomous agents which are capable of speeding up and improving workflows and processes," he explains.

Another example of 'no hype' agentic AI is Red Owl, a fresh innovation that is transforming business transactional workflows with the power of AI and automation. 

"AI agents are revolutionising how the modern enterprise operates," says Jitto Arulampalam, Chief Executive Officer at RedOwl. "As an example, compliance is mandated but mostly tracked post-transaction, making it almost impossible to prevent breaches, leakages and even fraud. Assessing every individual transaction prior to processing it against company policy and governance controls is not only impractical, but hugely costly in today's setup."

"However the advent of agentic AI is about to breathe new life into the age old profession of

Accounting and the necessary governance protocols that go with it. At RedOwl, we have

seen AI's ability to operationalise board mandated governance, compliance and control

across the organisation. We also see a future where AI agents are delivering board managed governance and control in real time."

Meanwhile, leading enterprise resource planning and analytics software provider, Pronto Software, recently signed a strategic agreement with IBM Australia, enabling the integration of powerful agentic AI capabilities into its Pronto Xi ERP platform via IBM Watsonx.

Agentic AI enables systems to autonomously interpret data, initiate actions, and optimise workflows, all with the goal of enhancing productivity and decision-making. By embedding this capability into the core ERP platform, Pronto Software ensures these tools are accessible where they are needed most in real operational environments.

"Our customers, many of them family-run, mid-sized businesses, can enable staff to act strategically," says Pronto Software Managing Director Chad Gates. "Pronto Software can work with customers to build and deploy agentic AI that not only informs, but acts on the information, unlocking real business value without compromising security."

"AI doesn't have to be overwhelming or intimidating," Gates adds. "It should feel like a natural part of your workflow, and that's exactly what we are delivering."