Hot take: 90% of agentic AI is just fancy RPA with a reasoning layer
alex_verem · x · 2026-09-22
A widely shared hot take argues 90% of what the market calls "agentic AI" is RPA with a reasoning layer: same intake, routing, decision trees — the only difference is unstructured input and an LLM making judgment calls instead of hardcoded if/else. The author says that's actually more valuable: reliable, testable business-process automation with audit trails, built by companies shipping to production rather than chasing AGI. The sci-fi wrapping exists because "intelligent process automation" doesn't get funding decks approved.
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