Why AI agents are the next big shift, and why your child should understand them now

Devesh Lathi
Jun 16
3 min read

We are in the middle of a quiet revolution. Most people think of AI as a tool that answers questions. You type something in, it responds. That is how most of us have come to understand ChatGPT, Gemini, and their cousins. But that version of AI is already becoming outdated.

The next wave is agentic AI, and it works very differently.

An AI agent does not wait for you to ask it something. It receives a goal, breaks it down into steps, decides what to do, takes action, checks the result, and adjusts. It can browse the web, write and run code, send emails, book appointments, analyse data, and coordinate with other agents, all on its own. It does not just answer. It acts.

This is not science fiction. Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and hundreds of startups are already deploying agentic systems across industries. Customer service agents that resolve complaints without human intervention. Research agents that scan thousands of papers and summarise findings in minutes. Financial agents that monitor portfolios and flag risks in real time. Coding agents that write, test, and debug software autonomously.

The shift from AI as a chatbot to AI as an agent is as significant as the shift from the internet as a library to the internet as a platform for commerce, communication, and work. It changes everything about how businesses operate, how decisions get made, and what skills actually matter.

So what does this mean for students?

The students entering college over the next two to three years will graduate into a world where agentic AI is embedded in every industry. The question will not be whether you use these tools. Everyone will. The question will be whether you understand them well enough to direct them, build with them, and think critically about when they work and when they fail.

That understanding is not something schools are teaching yet. It is not in the standard curriculum. It will not show up on a board exam. But it will absolutely show up in college applications, internship interviews, and early careers. The students who can say they built an AI agent, and show the work to prove it, will stand out.

This is not about becoming a programmer. Agentic AI tools are increasingly accessible without writing a single line of code. What matters is understanding the logic behind them. How do you define a goal clearly enough for an agent to execute? How do you design the steps? How do you test whether it is working? How do you identify where it goes wrong? These are thinking skills, not just technical ones.

They are also exactly the kind of skills top universities are looking for. Critical thinking applied to emerging technology. Independent project work. The ability to take a real-world problem and build a solution.

That is what our new program is designed to give students.

Foundations of Agentic AI

Aug 15 and 16, 2026 | 4 pm to 8 pm IST | Online | Age 14+ | INR 24,000

Over two evenings this Independence Day weekend, students learn how agentic AI systems think and act, then build their own working AI agent using no-code tools. No coding required.

Day 1 covers the fundamentals, real-world examples, and agent design.

Day 2 is hands-on building, testing, and a live demo to the group.

Students walk away with a working AI agent, a project report published on Futurowise, and a certificate, all of which strengthen a college application in a way that is still rare and genuinely impressive.