Agentic AI Hype Faces Reality Check Amid Privacy and Performance Concerns

The generative AI hype is fading, and the industry is now pivoting to Agentic AI—a rebranded version of the long-standing promise of autonomous systems. Despite grand claims, recent studies and real-world tests reveal significant shortcomings.

The Broken Promises of Agentic AI

• High failure rates: Research from Carnegie Mellon University (June 2025 paper) shows top AI agents like Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro fail 70% of office tasks, while OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Meta’s Llama-3.1-405b fail over 90%.
• Escalating costs: Gartner predicts 40% of Agentic AI projects will be canceled by 2027 due to unclear business value and risk concerns (Gartner report?utm_source=agenthunter.io&utm_medium=news&utm_campaign=newsletter)).

Privacy Nightmares

Agentic AI requires unprecedented data access—from calendars to bank details—raising severe privacy risks. Meredith Whittaker, CEO of Signal, warns:

"We are giving too much control to these systems... It will undermine your privacy." (LinkedIn post).

Regulatory Pushback

The EU AI Act mandates human control, stating:

"Humans must remain in control of the system." Countries like Germany and France are already resisting Agentic AI due to its risks (LinkedIn post).

The Scientific Alternative

Yoshua Bengio and others advocate for non-agentic, trustworthy AI—systems that explain the world rather than act autonomously. This approach aligns with global frameworks like the EU’s "trustworthy AI" principles (arXiv paper).

Photo: CottonBro Studio

The AI industry’s hype cycle continues, but the cracks in Agentic AI’s promises are too glaring to ignore.