AI is moving beyond automation into a new paradigm where systems plan, act, and adapt with increasing autonomy. But agentic AI has already gone through several distinct phases: from prompt engineering, to context engineering, to harness and loop design, each promising the next leap in capability. This session maps out where that evolution has actually landed.

For industry, the promise is a shift from optimising isolated processes to deploying AI that orchestrates workflows, makes decisions, and operates across entire value chains. But the terrain is uneven. Some applications show real, measured productivity gains. Others are still running on vendor narrative with little evidence behind them. And in places, teams are quietly trading judgement for throughput, outsourcing understanding to systems no one is positioned to double-check.

The session provides a grounded map of the field as it actually stands today: what's solid, what's promising but unproven, and what's still mostly hype, so you can place your own initiatives on it with clear eyes.

Key takeaway: Agentic AI is reshaping how organisations operate, but the field is far more uneven than the hype suggests. This session gives you the map to navigate it yourself.

This session is part of DTU's Industrial AI Program: From Artificial Intelligence to Industrial Intelligence at Digital Tech Summit 2026. Through a series of connected sessions, DTU brings together leading research and industry perspectives to explore how AI is reshaping products, processes, and operations across the industrial landscape.

Partners (the overall Industrial AI program): AI Denmark and AI Boost