AI Agents Demystified: Understanding, Evaluating & Working with Agentic AI

Introduction

AI agents - autonomous systems that can plan, make decisions, use tools and take actions on behalf of users - represent the next significant shift in how organisations use artificial intelligence. Unlike the chatbot-style AI tools that most professionals are now familiar with, AI agents can operate independently across multiple steps, interact with other software systems and even collaborate with other agents to complete complex tasks.

This shift brings enormous potential for efficiency and capability, but it also introduces a new category of questions that organisations need to answer: How do AI agents actually work? What can they realistically do today and what remains hype? How should you evaluate agent products and vendors? What does responsible deployment look like? And critically, what happens when an AI agent gets things wrong - who is accountable and how do you maintain oversight of a system designed to act autonomously?

This session cuts through the marketing noise to give delegates a clear, practical understanding of AI agents. It combines technical explanation (made accessible for non-technical professionals) with real-world case studies, practical evaluation frameworks and honest analysis of both the opportunities and the limitations of current agentic AI technology.

What You Will Learn

This live and interactive course will cover the following:

• What AI agents are, how they differ from standard generative AI tools and why this distinction matters for your organisation
• The core architecture of AI agents: how they plan, reason, use tools, access data and take autonomous actions - explained in plain language
• Real-world use cases: how AI agents are being deployed across professional services, including document review, research, client service, workflow automation and compliance monitoring
• How to evaluate AI agent products and vendor claims - the questions you should be asking before committing budget and resources
• The key risks specific to agentic AI: loss of human oversight, unpredictable agent behaviours, data leakage through tool use and the emerging challenge of agent-to-agent communication
• Practical governance frameworks for deploying AI agents responsibly, including human-in-the-loop controls, monitoring and accountability structures
• How to build internal capability so your organisation can make informed decisions about AI agents, rather than relying entirely on vendors or consultants
• What is coming next: multi-agent systems, agent marketplaces and the evolving regulatory response - and what this means for your planning

Recording of live sessions: Soon after the Learn Live session has taken place you will be able to go back and access the recording - should you wish to revisit the material discussed.