As artificial intelligence evolves, agentic AI is reshaping the landscape with autonomous agents that make decisions, initiate actions and execute complex tasks with minimal human input.

To operate effectively, agentic AI needs access to diverse, high-quality data. The Boomi Enterprise Platform supports this need by enabling agile master data management and data imputation, according to Chris Hallenbeck (pictured, left), senior vice president and general manager for AI and platform at Boomi LP.

Boomi’s Chris Hallenbeck and BARC US’s Shawn Rogers talk to theCUBE about how agentic AI scales human effort.

“I think one of the great things we have about the Boomi Platform is we can do really lightweight [master data management] using agents to clean,” Hallenbeck said. “I can do data imputation, create the golden records and bring those to bear in that project in a really agile, lightweight way as I’m building out my agents. Data quality is up 10%, and I can build quickly. I don’t have to wait for these data products on the data mesh that’s promised in two years.”

Hallenbeck and Shawn Rogers (right), chief executive officer of BARC US, spoke with theCUBE’s Savannah Peterson and Paul Nashawaty at Boomi World, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how agentic AI is driving innovation in products and services. (* Disclosure below.)

Digging deeper into agentic AI

Agentic AI can streamline business processes such as invoice reconciliation and manual journal entries by automating repetitive tasks, reducing human error and providing intelligent decision support. This level of automation relies on context awareness, transparent reasoning and clear goal representation, according to Hallenbeck.

“I’ve seen a lot over time with matching, whether it’s trades, goods receipt, invoice reconciliation or manual journal entries,” he said. “These are things that stop you from closing the books on time. I have to have a number of accountants based on my high watermark. It slows me [down] from closing the books. With an explainable AI, I can actually make those things run really smoothly and auditable.”

Because agentic AI relies so heavily on data, issues related to quality, accessibility and orchestration must be carefully managed. Noisy, biased, outdated or incomplete data can lead to poor decisions, according to Rogers.

“AI might actually be the forcing factor required for people to slam on the brakes, go backwards two steps and solve some of their data quality and data access and orchestration issues,” he said. “If you’re going to let autonomous or agentic AI go running and doing really cool stuff with your customers or with your inventory, whatever, you better have your act together.” 

To harness AI effectively and responsibly, organizations must prioritize AI readiness, which is essential for growth, resilience and long-term success in today’s evolving digital landscape. Yet despite its importance, AI readiness continues to rank low, according to Rogers.

“We do a lot of research at my firm on the industry, and what we’re seeing is an 80/20 split, 79/21 split,” he said. “Twenty-one percent of the people that are doing AI right now really laid down a very fantastic technology and policy foundation. They’re ready to play. They’re asking the right questions, they’re trying to get in the game. The other folks are trying to figure out what to prioritize. I don’t think that holistically, across the vendor landscape, all of the vendors are ready. A lot of them are over-rotating on talking about, ‘Do we have 10,000 agents?’” 

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Boomi World: 

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Boomi World. Neither Boomi LP, the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE