Agentic AI: And Other New Frontiers in GenAI

Artwork of the day: The Open Window, Juan Gris, 1921

“The Open Window” resides within the confines of the Cubist movement, which is attributed to its geometric fragmentation and multi-perspective rendering.

The artwork presents a view through an open window juxtaposed with various objects constituting a still-life scene. The window panes are depicted with sharp geometric lines and angles, opening up to a serene seascape. The sea and sky are represented in shades of blue and white, creating a sense of space and depth beyond the room’s interior.

The contrast between the open window and the still-life elements further accentuates the interplay between interior and exterior spaces, a common theme in the Cubist movement. Gris’s skillful use of color and form in “The Open Window” exemplifies his contribution to early 20th-century avant-garde art.

Note: This is the new minimalist version of the newsletter with no graphic images and links to articles.

Do you like this version or do you prefer the old version with graphics?

Connections, Agentic AI, and Open Windows

The GenAI papers just keep coming. This week, we’ve got a collection that helps us look “out the window,” a nod to today’s art, to help us all keep up with the latest advances and give you a better understanding of “Agentic AI.”

If you thought GenAI was cool, you are so yesterday! The new buzzword that is on everyone’s lips is Agentic AI which can reason and collect data from multiple agents.

Agentic AI is powerful and can do things that straight GenAI cannot. GenAI is limited to knowing what it has inside its model. Agentic AI, however, allows GenAI to reach out to other sources (agents) to collect data and use reasoning to formulate an answer.

Agentic AI is big, and it is not all hype, though rest assured, there is still plenty. That’s why today’s first paper explains Agentic AI: HERE

Now, to show you how big Agentic AI will be in banking, look to none other than McKinsey. In its latest paper on GenAI and banks, McKinsey uses a subtle bait-and-switch. GenAI is no longer seen as banks’ money maker, but instead “multiagent systems” or agentic AI.”

This shows in a not-so-subtle way how the goalposts for how exactly GenAI will make money are moving. Sarcasm aside, it also shows how powerful agentic AI truly is. HERE

The next stop on this week’s GenAI tour is a bit of myth-busting as we look at the top six myths for GenAI!

This is a great read, and I encourage readers to look. It is short yet powerful. These six myths create limiting behaviors in our perception of GenAI, and eliminating them will help all Cashless readers better understand its potential. Put another way, believe these myths at your own risk. HERE

For our final view “out the window” with AI, I present Bain’s massive 88-page “Tech Report 2024.” A better title would have been: “GenAI to the Rescue, but no Pain, No Gain!”

This long read on GenAI is excellent, and I credit Bain for being honest and admitting that while it will add value, it won’t be without pain. HERE

Our next two stories are back in the payment space, where we look at how the entire payment business is being moved by customer demand and fintech competition. Without these two factors, banks would never have launched the massive changes to their payment systems we see now. Read the long-form article

Finally, we look at CBDC privacy in a great paper by the Bank of England. The BoE looks at privacy-enhancing technology (PETs) to show how they can improve CBDC privacy. I have a controversial take on this. While I support using the latest technology, I show why this technological debate doesn’t matter……Read the long-form article

That's it for this week!

The holidays are coming! 🎁 Expect short newsletters and probably two weeks off from writing!

Thanks for reading

Rich