If You Call Everything Agentic, You’ll Never Get ROI from AI

ALT

If you call everything “agentic,” you’ll never get ROI from AI. Right now, the word is being used for anything that touches an LLM:

Chatbots
Zapier flows
RAG systems And that confusion is exactly why many “AI projects” stall after the demo. Also: don’t believe the hype in Instagram Reels. Teenagers aren’t building real businesses with AI in 90 seconds and “automating onboarding” between a margarita break. Demos are easy. Reliable systems in production are not. Here’s the mental model I use to audit what a company is actually building. What is NOT an AI agent? 1) LLMs (ChatGPT, Claude, etc.) You ask, they answer. They don’t decide, run tools, track goals, or own outcomes. They’re interfaces, not workers. 2) Automations (Zapier, Make, n8n, RPA) If X, do Y, then Z.