By MATT O’BRIEN, AP Technology Writer

For technology adopters looking for the next big thing, “agentic AI” is the future. At least, that’s what the marketing pitches and tech industry T-shirts say.

What makes an artificial intelligence product “agentic” depends on who’s selling it. But the promise is usually that it’s a step beyond today’s generative AI chatbots.

Chatbots, however useful, are all talk and no action. They can answer questions, retrieve and summarize information, write papers and generate images, music, video and lines of code. AI agents, by contrast, are supposed to be able to take actions autonomously on a person’s behalf.

But if you’re confused, you’re not alone. Google searches for “agentic” have skyrocketed from near obscurity a year ago to a peak earlier this fall.

A new report Tuesday by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Boston Consulting Group, who surveyed more than 2,000 business executives around the world, describes agentic AI as a “new class of systems” that “can plan, act, and learn on their own.”

“They are not just tools to be operated or assistants waiting for instructions,” says the MIT Sloan Management Review report. “Increasingly, they behave like autonomous teammates, capable of executing multistep processes and adapting as they go.”

How to know if it’s an AI agent or just a fancy chatbot

AI chatbots — such as the original ChatGPT that debuted three years ago this month — rely on systems called large language models that predict the next word in a sentence based on the huge trove of human writings they’ve been trained on. They can sound remarkably human, especially when given a voice, but are effectively performing a kind of word completion.

That’s different from what AI developers — including ChatGPT’s maker, OpenAI, and tech giants like Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Salesforce — have in mind for AI agents.

“A generative AI-based chatbot will say, ‘Here are the great ideas’ … and then be done,” said Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of Agentic AI at Amazon Web Services, in an interview this week. “It’s useful, but what makes things agentic is that it goes beyond what a chatbot does.”

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Sivasubramanian, a longtime Amazon employee, took on his new role helping to lead work on AI agents in Amazon’s cloud computing division earlier this year. He sees great promise in AI systems that can be given a “high-level goal” and break it down into a series of steps and act upon them. “I truly believe agentic AI is going to be one of the biggest transformations since the beginning of the cloud,” he said.

At its most basic level, an AI agent works like a traditional, human-crafted computer program that executes a job, like launching an application. Combined with an AI large language model, however, it can search for knowledge that enables it to complete tasks without explicit, step-by-step instructions. That means, instead of just helping you draft the language of an email, it can theoretically handle the whole process — receiving a message from your coworker, figuring out what you might want to say, and firing off the response on its own.

For most consumers, the first encounters with AI agents could be in realms like online shopping. Set a budget and some preferences and AI agents can buy things or arrange travel bookings using your credit card. In the longer run, the hope is that they can do more complex tasks with access to your computer and a set of guidelines to follow.

“I’d love an agent that just looked at all my medical bills and explanations of benefits and figured out how to pay them,” or another one that worked like a “personal shield” fighting off email spam and phishing attempts, said Thomas Dietterich, a professor emeritus at Oregon State University who has worked on developing AI assistants for decades.

Dietterich has some quibbles with companies using “agentic” to describe “any action a computer might do, including just looking things up on the web,” but is enthused about the possibilities of AI systems given the “freedom and responsibility” to refine goals and respond to changing conditions as they work on people’s behalf. They can even orchestrate a team of “subagents.”

“We can imagine a world in which there are thousands or millions of agents operating and they can form coalitions,” Dietterich said. “Can they form cartels? Would there be law enforcement (AI) agents?”

‘Agentic’ is a trendy buzzword based on an older idea

Milind Tambe has been researching AI agents that work together for three decades, since the first International Conference on Multi-Agent Systems gathered in San Francisco in 1995. Tambe said he’s been “amused” by the sudden popularity of “agentic” as an adjective. Previously, the word describing something that has agency was mostly found in other academic fields, such as psychology or chemistry.

But computer scientists have been debating what an agent is for as long as Tambe has been studying them.

In the 1990s, “people agreed that some software appeared more like an agent, and some felt less like an agent, and there was not a perfect dividing line,” said Tambe, a professor at Harvard University. “Nonetheless, it seemed useful to use the word ‘agent’ to describe software or robotic entities acting autonomously in an environment, sensing the environment, reacting to it, planning, thinking.”

The prominent AI researcher Andrew Ng, co-founder of online learning company Coursera, helped advocate for popularizing the adjective “agentic” more than a year ago to encompass a broader spectrum of AI tasks. At the time, he also appreciated that mainly “technical people” were describing it that way.

“When I see an article that talks about ‘agentic’ workflows, I’m more likely to read it, since it’s less likely to be marketing fluff and more likely to have been written by someone who understands the technology,” Ng wrote in a June 2024 blog post.

Ng didn’t respond to requests for comment on whether he still thinks that.

By ERIK VERDUZCO, TIM SULLIVAN and GARY D. ROBERTSON, Associated Press

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Federal immigration authorities will expand their enforcement action in North Carolina to Raleigh as soon as Tuesday, the mayor of the state’s capital city said, while Customs and Border Protection agents continue operating in Charlotte following a weekend that saw arrests of more than 130 people in that city.

Mayor Janet Cowell said Monday that she didn’t know how large the operation would be or how long agents would be present. Immigration authorities haven’t spoken about it. The Democrat said in a statement that crime was lower in Raleigh this year compared to last and that public safety was a priority for her and the city council.

“I ask Raleigh to remember our values and maintain peace and respect through any upcoming challenges,” Cowell said in a statement.

U.S. immigration agents arrested more than 130 people over the weekend in a sweep through Charlotte, North Carolina’s largest city, a federal official said Monday.

The movements in North Carolina come after the Trump administration launched immigration crackdowns in Los Angeles and Chicago. Both of those are deep blue cities in deep blue states run by nationally prominent officials who make no secret of their anger at the White House. The political reasoning there seemed obvious.

But why North Carolina and why was Charlotte the first target there?

Sure the mayor is a Democrat, as is the governor, but neither is known for wading into national political battles. In a state where divided government has become the norm, Gov. Josh Stein in particular has tried hard to get along with the GOP-controlled state legislature. The state’s two U.S. senators are both Republican and President Donald Trump won the state in the last three presidential elections.

The Department of Homeland Security has said it is focusing on North Carolina because of so-called sanctuary policies, which limit cooperation between local authorities and immigration agents.

But maybe focusing on a place where politics is less outwardly bloody was part of the equation, some observers say.

The White House “can have enough opposition (to its crackdown), but it’s a weaker version” than what it faced in places like Chicago, said Rick Su, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law who studies local government, immigration and federalism.

“They’re not interested in just deporting people. They’re interested in the show,” he said.

The crackdown

The Trump administration has made Charlotte, a Democratic city of about 950,000 people, its latest focus for an immigration enforcement surge it says will combat crime — despite local opposition and declining crime rates. Residents reported encounters with immigration agents near churches, apartment complexes and stores.

Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that Border Patrol officers had arrested “over 130 illegal aliens who have all broken” immigration laws. The agency said the records of those arrested included gang membership, aggravated assault, shoplifting and other crimes, but it did not say how many cases had resulted in convictions, how many people had been facing charges or any other details.

The crackdown set off fierce objections from area leaders.

“We’ve seen masked, heavily armed agents in paramilitary garb driving unmarked cars, targeting American citizens based on their skin color,” Stein said in a video statement late Sunday. “This is not making us safer. It’s stoking fear and dividing our community.”

Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles said Monday she was “deeply concerned” about videos she’s seen of the crackdown but also said she appreciates protesters’ peacefulness.

“To everyone in Charlotte who is feeling anxious or fearful: You are not alone. Your city stands with you,” she said in a statement.

The debate over crime and immigration

Charlotte and surrounding Mecklenburg County have both found themselves part of America’s debates over crime and immigration, two of the most important issues to the White House.

The most prominent was the fatal stabbing this summer of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light-rail train, an attack captured on video. While the suspect was from the U.S., the Trump administration repeatedly highlighted that he had been arrested previously more than a dozen times.

Charlotte, which had a Republican mayor as recently as 2009, is now a city dominated by Democrats, with a growing population brought by a booming economy. The racially diverse city includes more than 150,000 foreign-born residents, officials say.

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Lyles easily won a fifth term as mayor earlier this month, defeating her Republican rival by 45 percentage points even as GOP critics blasted city and state leaders for what they call rising incidents of crime. Following the Nov. 4 election, Democrats are poised to hold 10 of the other 11 seats on the city council.

While the Department of Homeland Security has said it is focusing on the state because of sanctuary policies, North Carolina county jails have long honored “detainers,” or requests from federal officials to hold an arrested immigrant for a limited time so agents can take custody of them. Nevertheless, some common, noncooperation policies have existed in a handful of places, including Charlotte, where the police do not help with immigration enforcement.

In Mecklenburg County, the jail did not honor detainer requests for several years, until after state law effectively made it mandatory starting last year.

DHS said about 1,400 detainers across North Carolina had not been honored since October 2020, putting the public at risk.

For years, Mecklenburg Sheriff Garry McFadden pushed back against efforts by the Republican-controlled state legislature to force him and a handful of sheriffs from other urban counties to accept U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers.

Republicans ultimately overrode a veto by then-Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper late last year to enact the bill into law.

While McFadden has said his office is complying with the law’s requirement, he continued a public feud with ICE leaders in early 2025 that led to a new state law toughening those rules. Stein vetoed that measure, but the veto was overridden.

Republican House Speaker Destin Hall said in a Monday post on X that immigration agents are in Charlotte because of McFadden’s past inaction: “They’re stepping in to clean up his mess and restore safety to the city.”

Last month, McFadden said he’d had a productive meeting with an ICE representative.

“I made it clear that I do not want to stop ICE from doing their job, but I do want them to do it safely, responsibly, and with proper coordination by notifying our agency ahead of time,” McFadden said in a statement.

But such talk doesn’t calm the political waters.

“Democrats at all levels are choosing to protect criminal illegals over North Carolina citizens,” state GOP Chairman Jason Simmons said Monday.

Sullivan reported from Minneapolis and Robertson from Raleigh, North Carolina. Associated Press writers Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland and Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed to this report.

Kids ‘n Kinship provides friendships and positive role models to children and youth ages 5-16 who are in need of an additional supportive relationship with an adult. Here’s one of the youth waiting for a mentor:

First name: August

Age: 7

Interests: Her favorite foods are Macaroni, chicken! She likes to learn, explore outside, visit new places, and paint.  She likes to go swimming and she suggested a fun outing with her mentor would be to go to the beach. She enjoys makeup and musicals as well as dress up and cooking, loves movies and shows, and is very helpful.

Personality/Characteristics:  She describes herself as nice, funny, and goofy!  She might be shy and quiet, but not for long! When she’s comfortable she becomes loud and active, hyper at times.

Goals/dreams: Her three wishes would be to: 1) Have a baby fox as a pet 2) Have a pet panda 3) Be a cat!  When she grows up she wants to be a police officer. Her mom hopes a mentor will provide her with someone safe to connect with who shares the same interests as her and provide her with some new adventures. A mentor who could guide and role model emotional control and teach her to express herself better would be a great fit!

For more information: August is waiting for a mentor through Kids n’ Kinship in Dakota County. To learn more about this youth mentoring program and the 39+ youth waiting for a mentor, sign up for an Information Session, visit www.kidsnkinship.org or email programs@kidsnkinship.org. For more information about mentoring in the Twin Cities outside of Dakota County, contact MENTOR MN at mentor@mentormn.org or fill out a brief form at www.mentoring.org/take-action/become-a-mentor/#search.

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A majority of New Yorkers voted to pass ballot measures that change the land use process for affordable housing. But Republican districts and neighborhoods that built less housing are still resistant to the changes.

The map above shows how neighborhoods voted on Proposal 2, which creates a “fast track” approval option for affordable housing projects. Blue indicates areas where a majority voted in favor, and pink voted against the measure. (Patrick Spauster/City Limits)

A total YIMBY victory?

Two weeks ago, New Yorkers passed three housing ballot measures that change how affordable housing projects get permitted, with each receiving more than 56 percent of the vote across the five boroughs.

It was a win for the so-called “Yes in My Backyard” movement, which encourages the production of more housing to control rising costs.

But not every part of the city gave the ballot measures the thumbs up. 

Voters in City Council districts that built more affordable housing over the past five years approved the measures with a two-thirds margin. Those that built less were 13 points behind, with 53 percent voting to advance them. Voters also disapproved the measures in five out of six districts represented by Republicans.

Those districts that built less were precisely the target of some of the reforms, which supporters say will ensure all neighborhoods chip in to building housing amid a citywide shortage.

The ballot measures move some of the City Council’s land use authority to boards with members appointed by the mayor. Proposal 2 creates an affordable housing fast track, 3 streamlines building for “modest” development projects, and Proposal 4 creates a board of the mayor, borough president, and Council speaker that can override the Council when it blocks or reduces affordable housing in development projects.

While the changes passed by finer margins than initial polling suggested, supporters touted the vote as a victory for affordable housing in an election that had the highest turnout in a mayoral year since 1969.

“There is a healthy pro-housing consensus in this city. Over a million people voted for an affordable housing fast track, and in every borough and in places where the political system has not been delivering affordable housing in a generation,” said Alec Shirrenbeck, executive director of the Charter Revision Commission, which was convened by Mayor Eric Adams and crafted the measures.

According to the New York Housing Conference, just 10 City Council districts built 53 percent of all the city’s affordable housing over the past decade. Four out of 51 districts produced under 100 total units, according to their tracker.

While changing the power dynamics around housing appealed to YIMBYs and their coalition, the City Council and some tenants’ rights groups saw the ballot measures as a power grab.

“The deceptive language of Mayor Adams’ proposals hid what they changed in order to secure approval from voters, which is fundamentally anti-democratic,” said City Council Spokesperson Benjamin Fang in a statement to City Limits.

The ballot measures passed by wide margins in some City Council districts where members were strongly opposed, like Council Speaker Adrienne Adams’ district, where nearly three in four voters on average voted for ballot measures 2 through 4.

The City Council maintains that the proposals were worded deceptively. “Portraying them simply as advancing housing faster rather than honestly as shifting power from a democratic land use process to more mayoral power, helps explain why they were approved and where they earned support,” Spokesperson Fang said in a statement.

The proposals underperformed compared to other recent ballot measures, passing with the narrowest margin in 15 years, according to the Council’s analysis. No measure passed with less than two thirds of the vote in that time, the Council says.

City lawmakers are now pushing for Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature on a bill in Albany that would roll back some of the changes passed by New York voters (though Hochul expressed support for the ballot measures before Election Day).

Opponents say they support new housing, but that the measures cut local voices from the process and reduce the leverage that councilmembers have to secure benefits in their districts during project negotiations.

New tools for a new mayor

Amid rising housing costs across the country, cities have been looking for ways to build more, which some experts say will ease rent increases. But local communities often oppose new development—creating a political conundrum for policymakers.

Opposition to projects like the Just Home affordable housing complex in the Bronx, where the local community and councilmembers protested, can stop or slow new construction for years.

“The loudest community voices are a small minority of any area. And those voices get amplified in certain public meetings and certain press, but they do not represent the majority of residents in any neighborhood,” said Andrew Fine, policy director at the YIMBY group Open New York.

But in a sign of changing political dynamics around housing, Republican Councilmember Kristy Marmorato, who won her seat in 2023 in part due to her opposition to Just Home, lost to Democrat Shirley Aldebol earlier this month. The district was also the only Republican-represented district to vote for the ballot measures, which won 52 percent of the vote there.

Signs opposing the Just Home project in The Bronx neighborhood where it was planned. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

In New Jersey, the state’s northern suburbs have built 50 percent more homes per resident than New York City, thanks to a landmark legal decision called Mount Laurel, which requires localities to zone to facilitate housing.

Now, with a fast track to production in the 12 community districts that have built the least affordable housing, New York City will have its own mechanism to build in neighborhoods that are lagging behind.

“This happens all the time, where a larger form of government makes decisions that are best for the greater good, and that can understand the externalities that a smaller form of government cannot,” said Fine.

He also pointed to recent tenant protections, including 2019 state rent laws and good cause eviction, that he says open the door to new housing while assuaging fears about displacement.

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani voted for the housing ballot measures on Election Day, after weeks of speculation over his stance.

“I also understand that there are councilmembers in opposition to these measures, and their opposition is driven by commitment to their communities and a deep concern about investment in those communities and I share the commitment to that investment,” Mamdani said after voting. “I look forward to working with them and delivering.”

Supporters said that the changes to the land use process are modest fixes—and the government will still be in conversation with local districts about their needs when it comes to new development. 

“You need to do deep community work, that you need to work with all the elected officials. You have to try to find consensus wherever consensus can be found. Nothing about these changes suspends the rules of politics,” said Shierenbeck.

The ballot measures will give Mamdani more tools to reach his ambitious housing goals, which includes building 200,000 affordable apartments in the next decade, Shierenbeck added.

He pointed to the “fast track” provision, which means publicly financed affordable housing projects—like the long-debated Elizabeth Street Garden senior building in SoHo—will be voted on by the Board of Standards going forward instead of the City Council, where opposition from local councilmembers can sometimes derail projects.

In development, time is money. Shierenbeck thinks the new zoning actions will help Mamdani stretch the city’s capital dollars to finance affordable housing, even as he tries to ask the state for more.

“These reforms are not everything, but coupled with other changes and a kind of a multi-year commitment to housing, that we can really see material benefits for working in middle class New Yorkers,” said Shierenbeck.

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Patrick@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

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The post How Your NYC Neighborhood Voted On The Housing Ballot Measures appeared first on City Limits.