WTF is Agent Washing?
Rebranding chatbots, assistants or plain automation as "AI agents" when they have little real autonomy.
Also called: agentwashing
TL;DR
Like greenwashing, but for AI. Because "agent" sells, vendors relabel existing chatbots and scripted automation as agents. Ask: does it decide its own next steps and use tools to finish a goal, or does it follow a fixed script?
How it works
Gartner described it as rebranding existing products such as AI assistants, robotic process automation and chatbots without substantial agentic capabilities, and estimated only around 130 vendors offered genuinely agentic products. A practical test: can the system plan multi-step work, choose and call tools, observe results and adapt (an agentic loop), or is every path predefined (a workflow, or just RPA)?
Origin
- Coined / introduced by
- Gartner
- When
- Jun 2025
- Story
- Gartner used the term alongside a forecast that over 40% of agentic AI projects would be cancelled by the end of 2027.