# AI Agents and Agentic AI-Navigating a Plethora of Concepts for Future Manufacturing

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.01376 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.01376/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in General LLM agent frameworks and benchmarks, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use.
- Builds on 16 of its 55 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 2 Jul 2025.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [General LLM agent frameworks and benchmarks](https://mlsanity.com/agents/general-llm-agent-frameworks-and-benchmarks/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 16 of 16)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.13971/) (2023)
- [Improved Baselines with Visual Instruction Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.03744/) (2023)
- [Qwen Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.16609/) (2023)
- [A Survey on Large Language Model based Autonomous Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.11432/) (2023)
- [PaLM-E: An Embodied Multimodal Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.03378/) (2023)
- [A Survey on Multimodal Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.13549/) (2023)
- [The Dawn of LMMs: Preliminary Explorations with GPT-4V(ision)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.17421/) (2023)
- [mPLUG-Owl2: Revolutionizing Multi-modal Large Language Model with Modality Collaboration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.04257/) (2023)
- [LayoutLMv3: Pre-training for Document AI with Unified Text and Image Masking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.08387/) (2022)
- [Towards Generalist Biomedical AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.14334/) (2023)
- [Multimodal Large Language Models: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.13165/) (2023)
- [Large Multimodal Agents: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.15116/) (2024)
- [Art and the science of generative AI: A deeper dive](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.04141/) (2023)
- [XYLayoutLM: Towards Layout-Aware Multimodal Networks For Visually-Rich Document Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.06947/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [Getting out of the Big-Muddy: Escalation of Commitment in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.01545/) (2025)
- [Foundation-Model-Based Agents in Industrial Automation: Purposes, Capabilities, and Open Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.02592/) (2026)
- [An Agentic AI Framework with Large Language Models and Chain-of-Thought for UAV-Assisted Logistics Scheduling with Mobile Edge Computing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.13221/) (2026)
- [Hierarchical Prompt-Domain Control and Learning for Resource-Constrained Agentic Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.27703/) (2026)
- [Agentic AI Autonomy Assessment: A Decision-Support Framework Towards Governed Supply Chain Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.25405/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

AI agents are autonomous systems designed to perceive, reason, and act within dynamic environments. With the rapid advancements in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs) and multimodal large language models (MLLMs) have significantly improved AI agents' capabilities in semantic comprehension, complex reasoning, and autonomous decision-making. At the same time, the rise of Agentic AI highlights adaptability and goal-directed autonomy in dynamic and complex environments. LLMs-based AI Agents (LLM-Agents), MLLMs-based AI Agents (MLLM-Agents), and Agentic AI contribute to expanding AI's capabilities in information processing, environmental perception, and autonomous decision-making, opening new avenues for smart manufacturing. However, the definitions, capability boundaries, and practical applications of these emerging AI paradigms in smart manufacturing remain unclear. To address this gap, this study systematically reviews the evolution of AI and AI agent technologies, examines the core concepts and technological advancements of LLM-Agents, MLLM-Agents, and Agentic AI, and explores their potential applications in and integration into manufacturing, along with the potential challenges they may face.