Johannes Schneider

Johannes Schneider

Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) builds upon Generative AI (GenAI). It constitutes the next major step in the evolution of AI with much stronger reasoning and interaction capabilities that enable more autonomous behavior to tackle complex tasks. Since the initial release of ChatGPT (3.5), Generative AI has seen widespread adoption, giving users firsthand experience. However, the distinction between Agentic AI and GenAI remains less well understood. To address this gap, our survey is structured in two parts. In the first part, we compare GenAI and Agentic AI using existing literature, discussing their key characteristics, how Agentic AI remedies limitations of GenAI, and the major steps in GenAI's evolution toward Agentic AI. This section is intended for a broad audience, including academics in both social sciences and engineering, as well as industry professionals. It provides the necessary insights to comprehend novel applications that are possible with Agentic AI but not with GenAI. In the second part, we deep dive into novel aspects of Agentic AI, including recent developments and practical concerns such as defining agents. Finally, we discuss several challenges that could serve as a future research agenda, while cautioning against risks that can emerge when exceeding human intelligence.

Marcus Basalla, Johannes Schneider, Jan vom Brocke

While the potential of deep learning (DL) for automating simple tasks is already well explored, recent research has started investigating the use of deep learning for creative design, both for complete artifact creation and supporting humans in the creation process. In this paper, we use insights from computational creativity to conceptualize and assess current applications of generative deep learning in creative domains identified in a literature review. We highlight parallels between current systems and different models of human creativity as well as their shortcomings. While deep learning yields results of high value, such as high-quality images, their novelty is typically limited due to multiple reasons such as being tied to a conceptual space defined by training data. Current DL methods also do not allow for changes in the internal problem representation, and they lack the capability to identify connections across highly different domains, both of which are seen as major drivers of human creativity.