AI Agents Debut Atop Gartner 2025 Hype Cycle for Emerging Tech

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How quickly does the AI market evolve? Consider that a year ago, Gartner didn’t even include AI agents on its Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies. Fast forward 12 months, and AI agents sit atop the hype cycle, along with a slew of other AI technologies. At the same time, a handful of AI categories have fallen off the hype curve.

Generative AI was the big new thing from late 2022 until late 2024, as it became the most talked-about new technology since perhaps the iPhone debuted in 2007. Almost nobody had heard about GenAI before then–except for readers of this publication as well as those who watch Gartner, which included GenAI on its 2020 and 2020 Hype Cycles for Emerging Technologies before ditching it for the 2022 version (whoops).

But as the calendar flipped from 2024 to 2025, the market also flipped out for AI agents, or agentic AI. Thanks to a new class reasoning models, such as DeepSeek R-1, organizations had the capability to automate more complex tasks than what chatbots and copilots could handle earlier. Suddenly the delirium over GenAI was replaced with a frenzy for AI agents, or agentic AI as it is sometimes called.

AI Agents made their debut in Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Emerging Technology, which the analyst firm publicly released on Wednesday, September 10. The technology is just shy of the “Peak of Inflated Expectations,” Gartner says, with an expectation of two to five years to achieve the “Plateau of Productivity,” which is the technological promised land in Gartner-speak.

While AI agents are quite promising, there are some important caveats that organizations must keep in mind as they attempt to leverage the technology for competitive advantage.

“AI agents can perceive, make decisions, take actions and achieve goals in their digital or physical environments to help organizations meet their objectives,” the folks at Gartner said. “By using tools like LLMs, organizations are creating and deploying AI agents to handle complex tasks. These agents could transform many industries by automating work in areas like consumer services, industry, data analysis, content creation, and logistics.”

(Source: Gartner)

However, trust in AI agents remains limited “due to concerns about their ability to accurately predict and execute tasks,” the Connecticut-based firm continues. “Without human oversight, AI agents could make important decisions quickly before anyone notices. Gartner recommends organizations factor AI agents into strategic planning by understanding their capabilities and applications, especially as they become more independent and easier to use.”

AI Agents replaced Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, which made their debut in Gartner’s 2024 Hype Cycle and whose hype contracts were not renewed for 2025. Other new AI technologies and AI-adjacent tech that Gartner included in the 2025 Hype Cycle includes: Decision Intelligence, Domain Specific GenAI Models, Physical AI, Embodied AI, Vibe Coding, and Model Context Protocol (MCP). The 2025 Hype Cycle listed 30 technologies in all, versus 26 for the 2024 edition.

Gartner describes Decision Intelligence as a “practical discipline that advances decision making by understanding and engineering how decisions are made, as well as how outcomes are evaluated, managed and improved via feedback.” It’s all about improving the quality, speed, and resilience of decision-making using a variety of techniques, including AI.

“Agentic AI and generative AI hype, regulatory pressures on decision automation, and recent global uncertainty have revealed weaknesses in traditional business processes and decision making,” stated Christian Stephan, a senior director analyst at Gartner. “In response, organizations now demand decision processes that deliver speed and quality, but are also consistent, compliant, cost-effective and capable of handling complexity and change.”

AI-related technologies that Gartner included in the 2024 Hype Cycle but that disappeared this year include: Generative AI, Prompt Engineering, AI-Augmented Software Engineering, AI Supercomputing, Multiagent Systems, Reinforcement Learning, Federated Machine Learning, and AI TRiSM, which stands for Trust, Risk, and Security Management.

AI-related tech from the 2024 Hype Cycle that stayed for this year includes Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which slid backward on the curve and still has a timeline of 10 years plus. Machine Customers, which are nonhuman economic actors that purchase goods or services on behalf of people or organizations, moved forward a bit and now sits near the Peak of Inflated Expectations. Its time to productivity shortened from 10+ years to five-to-10 years.

“Machine customers will play an important role in industries like manufacturing, retail and consumer goods, unlocking new revenue and efficiency opportunities,” said Gartner VP Analyst Marty Resnick. “To capitalize, organizations must reimagine their business models or risk being left behind.”

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