The cognitive leap
How to reimagine work with AI agents and multiagent systems
Continuing our series on AI agents and multiagent systems, this report outlines the principles of agentic architecture and design to help organizations make the cognitive leap into a new paradigm of business process transformation and innovation.
Key takeaways about agentic architecture and design
- Multiagent AI systems can help transform traditional, rules-based business and IT processes into adaptive, cognitive processes.
- Organizations should leverage key principles of AI agent and multiagent AI system design and management, which borrow from tenets of composable design, microservices architecture and human resources deployment and teaming.
- The ability to scale AI agent frameworks across a range of use cases depends on developing a comprehensive reference architecture populated with reusable core components.
- A systematic approach can make the difference between incremental, isolated improvements and exponential enterprise transformation.
How agents deliver a cognitive advantage
AI agents and multiagent systems can understand context, plan workflows, connect to external tools and data, and execute actions to achieve a goal.
They do so by echoing some of the key qualities and advantages that have helped humans survive and flourish—understanding language, creatively articulating responses, using specialized tools to amplify our capabilities, and learning and remembering information to improve.
Principles of effective AI agent architecture and management
In our full report, we explore how the following principles of agentic architecture can help ensure AI agents and multiagent systems are robust, reliable and trustworthy.
Explore more from our AI agents series
Dive into our ongoing series to build your understanding of AI agents and multiagent systems and get tangible recommendations on how to move forward.
See use cases showing how AI agents and multiagent systems can transform traditional, human-led processes.
Learn about how AI agents can help you rewrite the rules of automation to unlock efficiency and value.
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Making the cognitive leap
The rapid evolution of multiagent AI systems is transforming how organizations address challenges and streamline processes. By anchoring in the foundational principles—and leveraging a robust reference architecture—your organization can leap ahead and seize the potential of AI agents now.
Explore more in the full report, including a detailed reference architecture and an example use case for process transformation.
Prakul Sharma
Abdi Goodarzi
Deloitte's AI and Data services
Unlock the power of data with AI to generate business insights and evergreen value.
Contributors to this report: Jim Rowan, Brijraj Limbad, Pradeep Gorai, Caroline Ritter, Brendan McElrone, Laura Shact
Endnotes
1. Boshi Wang, Sewon Min, Xiang Deng, Jiaming Shen, You Wu, Luke Zettlemoyer and Huan Sun, Towards Understanding Chain-of-Thought Prompting: An Empirical Study of What Matters, Cornell University, June 1, 2023, https://arxiv.org/pdf/2212.10001, accessed September 16, 2024.