Is the current wave of “agents” narrowing our imagination?

The word agent has suddenly become the label for almost anything that moves. A simple workflow is an agent. A chatbot with a memory is an agent. A string of prompts stitched together is an agent. It is the same pattern we saw when agile and disruption slipped into everyday language. Natural enough, but as the meaning spreads, the underlying idea thins out.

That thinning matters, because most of what is now called an agent is really an automation. It follows a sequence. It responds to a trigger. It carries out choices that were made for it. Useful, certainly. But not the kind of system that can change how work happens.

A genuine agent is something else. It observes context. It copes with uncertainty. It holds a clear goal and works towards it without being told each move to make. It selects its own tools. It adjusts when the ground shifts. That is not fantasy. It is a different quality of system design.

And this is the real point. The rush towards “agents” risks locking us onto the wrong scale of problem. Automating low value tasks saves time, but it does not change how needs are met. It does not help organisations understand existing needs, uncover unmet ones, or imagine new forms of value.

If we rebadge every app or workflow as an agent, we will miss the bigger opportunity. The promise of AI is not quicker ticket routing or faster email handling. The promise is the chance to rethink how services work, how outcomes are achieved, and how systems could be redesigned from first principles.

The question is not “How do we add agents to what we already do?” It is “What would we build if we started from the need rather than the task?”

Until we shift to that level of thinking, we will end up with a crowded landscape of minor efficiencies and very little that truly moves us forward.