Beyond Generative AI: Why Agentic AI Is the Next Frontier and What It Means for Emerging Markets

Generative AI may have changed how we work — but agentic AI is about to change how decisions get made.

Writing in The Business & Financial Times, Johnson Idesoh, Group Chief Information and Technology Officer at Absa, argues that the generative AI boom was just the opening act. The real transformation now underway is the rise of agentic AI — systems capable not just of responding to prompts, but of pursuing objectives independently, determining which steps to take, which tools to use, and how to adapt when initial approaches fail.

Rather than completing a single task on command, agentic systems can be assigned broader goals — improving customer onboarding, resolving compliance bottlenecks, or detecting unusual transaction patterns — and execute them with minimal human intervention.

Key Takeaways

• The shift from generative to agentic: Generative AI produces outputs; agentic AI makes decisions and takes actions. This is a fundamentally different category of capability with far greater enterprise implications.
• Africa's leapfrog advantage: Just as mobile money bypassed traditional banking infrastructure, Africa's institutional gaps may create conditions for faster, more adaptive AI adoption — particularly through agentic systems designed to solve local problems.
• The coordination imperative: Realizing AI's potential requires deliberate investment in people, governance, and cross-sector partnerships between banks, regulators, telecoms, and tech firms.

Idesoh makes the case that the countries and organizations that benefit most from agentic AI will be those that invest early in shaping the technology — not just consuming it.

For business leaders, the message is direct: the transition from generative to agentic AI isn't a future scenario. It's already underway, and the strategic window to build governance frameworks and local capability is now.

🔗 Read the full article on The Business & Financial Times