Imagine you have a personal assistant who can help you with your daily work, organise your timetable, and prepare for client meetings. Now imagine that assistant can also decide what needs doing, work out the best way to do it, and carry out the tasks with very little help from you.
That’s where AI Agents and Agentic AI come in.
Let’s forget the technical jargon for a moment. Imagine you have a capable junior employee in your firm who can help you with everyday work.
1. What is an AI Agent?
An AI Agent is like a digital assistant that can carry out tasks for you. You give it an instruction, and it uses the tools available to it to do the work.
Example in a law firm:
You ask an AI Agent to help with a new client’s onboarding. It might be able to:
- Prepare a client information checklist.
- Draft an email requesting the necessary documents.
- Organise the information received.
- Prepare a summary of the outstanding documents.
Think of it as giving a junior employee a task but your assistant is software rather than a person. You still need to check the work, and some actions may require your approval.
2. What is Agentic AI?
Agentic AI describes how independently an AI system can work towards achieving a goal.
Instead of simply completing one task at a time, it can plan a series of steps, decide what needs to happen next, check its progress and adjust its approach when necessary.
Example in a law firm:
You instruct an AI system:
“Help me prepare for tomorrow’s meeting with a new commercial client.”
Depending on its access and capabilities, it might:
- Review the documents you have provided.
- Identify important issues and missing information.
- Prepare a summary of the client’s circumstances.
- Draft questions you should ask at the meeting.
- Compile everything into a meeting preparation document.
Rather than you having to request each step individually, the system works through the process towards your overall goal. Of course, it can only access documents and systems it has been authorised to use, and you must still verify its work.
3. So, what is the actual difference?
| AI Agent | Agentic AI |
| The digital assistant that does the work. | The ability to plan and carry out work with greater independence. |
| Can be assigned a specific task. | Can work towards a broader goal involving several tasks. |
| May follow a straightforward process. | Can decide what steps to take and adapt as it goes. |
Think of the difference between asking an assistant to draft a letter and asking an assistant to help manage the process of bringing a new client on board.
The first is a specific task. The second involves multiple tasks, decisions and follow-ups.
That is where more agentic AI systems could become particularly useful to a small law firm: reducing repetitive administration, helping manage workflows and freeing up time for work that requires a lawyer’s experience and judgement.
