AI is everywhere. The term Agentic AI is appearing more and more in strategy sessions, conferences, and coffee chats with colleagues. Everyone is talking about it.

But what if you want to improve or automate a business process yourself? What can you already do with Agentic AI today? Where do you start? And how do you know it’s working?

In this blog, we’ll discuss practical applications, smart design choices, and our vision for successfully starting with Agentic AI.

AI Agent vs. Agentic AI

The terms sound similar, but the difference in functionality and impact is significant. Understanding that distinction is essential before diving into implementation.

AI Agent

An AI agent is a digital assistant that responds to a specific instruction. Think of a chatbot retrieving your remaining holiday allowance or creating a new client record in your CRM system. Efficient, but always task-based: one input, one output.

Agentic AI

Agentic AI takes things further. It’s an autonomous, goal-driven agent. Instead of assigning individual tasks, you give it an end goal. The agent determines the steps needed to reach that goal within pre-defined boundaries, gathering information, making decisions, and triggering systems.

Agentic AI in practice

While the concept of Agentic AI is still relatively new, powerful applications are already available today. Here are three real-world use cases we encounter at Ciphix.

1. Smarter email handling through a multi-agent architecture

Many organisations struggle with overloaded inboxes, especially in HR, finance, and customer service teams. Agentic AI can help automate part of this workload. For example:

• A customer sends a long email with multiple questions.
• One agent analyses the whole thread and identifies the actual question.
• A second agent links that question to the appropriate process.
• The follow-up is triggered automatically, or -if needed- escalated to the right colleague.

By orchestrating multiple agents in one flow, even complex communication chains can be streamlined and resolved faster.

2. Automating document processing (IDP/IXP)

Think of incoming invoices, contracts or application forms. Instead of relying on manual review, Agentic AI can:

• Identify key data points in the document.
• Cross-check them with internal policies or contract details.
• Update your systems automatically.

If something doesn’t match, the task is handed over to a human. That way, you maintain control while reducing repetitive work.

3. Streamlining repetitive business processes

Many internal processes follow predictable steps. Like:

• Onboarding new employees
• Processing expense claims
• Launching a quotation flow

By modelling these processes in a clear structure (e.g., BPMN), you can assign agents to specific steps. There is no need to wait for a single “super-agent” to do it all; just deploy several smaller agents that work together within an orchestrated framework.

The power of starting small

One of the biggest pitfalls of AI implementation? Trying to do too much too soon. Building an all-encompassing agent that understands and executes every process might sound appealing, but in reality, it rarely works. You lose visibility, testing becomes complex, and the risk of errors increases. That’s why at Ciphix, we follow a different principle:

• Start small.
• Define clear goals.
• Design focused agents with a specific role.

Like you would build a team, each agent has its own responsibility, keeping the system scalable and easy to manage.

How to build trust in Agentic AI

At Ciphix, it all starts with human supervision. In the initial phase, a team member validates the agent’s output. We gather insights on what works (and what doesn’t) and fine-tune the agent using real data. This step-by-step approach builds a trustworthy solution that your team can rely on.

You’ll also benefit from our years of experience in business process orchestration. We use our own tooling to visualise process models and combine AI, RPA, and integrations into one intelligent, scalable framework.

Agentic AI isn’t just a buzzword; It’s an opportunity

The technology is here. The tools are available. And the first implementations are already live. The only question is: what’s your first step?

At Ciphix, we help you take that step smartly, safely, and manageably, with tangible results from day one. Curious to see where your organisation could benefit? Book a chat with us!