You have probably heard the terms AI Agent and Agentic AI come up quite frequently lately. But do you know if they are the same thing or if they are different? Initially, I thought that they were probably the same thing – that’s what sparked this article. But that’s not the case. Let’s get started.
What is Agentic AI?
Agentic AI is focused on the capability for the AI agents. It’s like the brains behind the operation. If you’re talking about agentic AI, you’re talking about the system that can:
- Make decisions on the action that needs to be done based on its environment.
- Plan a series of steps to achieve the goal or outcome
- Act autonomously – do things without us humans constantly getting involved
In a nutshell, agentic AI contains the knowledge, decision-making skills, and the ability to respond in real-time – like a SOC Analyst.
What is an AI Agent?
On the other side, an AI Agent is the part that actually performs the capabilities of the agentic AI system. It could be a bot or a virtual assistant that performs specific tasks. Let’s imagine that we have an AI-powered SOC bot in place. The “SOC bot” might be able to:
- Watch and monitor the firewall activity as it’s happening
- Be able to quarantine compromised endpoints (laptops, servers, etc.) immediately
- Create and send a daily security status report to you via email
The AI agent is like the actual SOC Analyst – using their skills to action security-related tasks such as monitoring, response, and reporting.
The simplified analogy
Let’s use an even simpler analogy to ensure that we’ll never forget the difference between the two terms:
- Agentic AI is the martial arts style (skills, strategy, discipline). Think of Kung Fu or Jeet Kune Do.
- The AI Agent is the trained fighter who uses that style to protect you, like Bruce Lee (the legend!).
Simply put, you can have the smartest AI “brains” in the world (agentic AI), but it can be useless without deploying them into the field as active AI agents.
How does this affect cybersecurity?
When it comes to cybersecurity, speed and accuracy are so important. You need to be able to detect and respond to threats like a Minecraft speed runner.
AI can be very helpful to improve your detection and response. For example, an agentic AI system can plan how to respond to ransomware, phishing, or DDoS attacks. While the AI agents can act on that plan immediately without waiting for us to approve each and every step.
By combining agentic AI and AI agents, we can improve the security posture by being:
- Proactive: Stopping threats before they escalate
- Scalable: Respond to more alerts than any human team could
- Adaptive: Continuously learning and improving over time (us humans can do this too but not as fast)
Go AI Agents & Agentic AI Go!
I’m sure this sounds as exciting and overwhelming to you as it does to me! But if you start with small, simple changes, you can obtain real value from using AI agents and agentic AI. Remember:
- Agentic AI is the mind.
- AI agents are the hands.
Now let’s get going to create an incredible cybersecurity defense team – GO AGENTS GO! Yes, that’s an attempt at a cheer 😊
Don’t forget to enjoy the learning process and get started today. Be secure!
