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ZDNET's key takeaways
Today's AI agents don't meet the definition of true agents.
Key missing elements are reinforcement learning and complex memory.
It will take at least five years to get AI agents where they need to be.
The giants of enterprise technology -- Microsoft, ServiceNow, Salesforce, and others -- have spent the past year and a half unveiling various kinds of artificial intelligence agents, programs that can automate many tasks within their respective software suites.
Also: AI killed the cloud-first strategy: Why hybrid computing is the only way forward now
The vendors hope that these agents will manifest what they consider the true promise of generative AI: to make enterprise work more streamlined and productive.
While they may bring benefits, these agents are not the agents we really want. They are simple automations and don't live up to the true definition of an agent. As a result, enterprise hopes for agents are likely to meet with bitter disappointment in the near term. Key technology is missing from agents, and it may take another generation of AI evolution to bring the expected benefits.
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