🔍 Agentic AI Understands Goals, Not Just Keywords

AI now interprets intent and context, taking action across workflows.

Author

Samantha Vale
August 25, 2025

In partnership with

Learn from this investor’s $100m mistake

In 2010, a Grammy-winning artist passed on investing $200K in an emerging real estate disruptor. That stake could be worth $100+ million today.

One year later, another real estate disruptor, Zillow, went public. This time, everyday investors had regrets, missing pre-IPO gains.

Now, a new real estate innovator, Pacaso – founded by a former Zillow exec – is disrupting a $1.3T market. And unlike the others, you can invest in Pacaso as a private company.

Pacaso’s co-ownership model has generated $1B+ in luxury home sales and service fees, earned $110M+ in gross profits to date, and received backing from the same VCs behind Uber, Venmo, and eBay. They even reserved the Nasdaq ticker PCSO.

Paid advertisement for Pacaso’s Regulation A offering. Read the offering circular at invest.pacaso.com. Reserving a ticker symbol is not a guarantee that the company will go public. Listing on the NASDAQ is subject to approvals.

Hey there, Tech Trailblazers! 🤖✨

In this issue, we explore how agentic AI is opening a new chapter in financial services. These systems go beyond answering questions to proactively setting goals, analyzing data, and executing tasks.

Early examples already include fraud prevention, automated loan approvals, and real-time client support handled entirely by AI agents

📰 Upcoming in this issue

  • 🤖 Agentic AI Is Rewiring Financial Services

  • 🎓 Inside Villanova’s Online MSBAi, AI in Every Course

  • 🤖 Most Inc. 5000 CEOs Use AI for Marketing, But Sales Is Surging

🤖 Agentic AI Is Rewiring Financial Services

Autonomous agents connect systems, reason over data, and complete tasks, from underwriting to service. 52% of FSIs use generative AI, but accountability and security remain hurdles.

Key Takeaways:

  • 🧠 From Reactive To Agentic: Agents understand goals and context, then execute multi-step workflows without constant prompts.

  • ⚡ Measurable Wins: Institutions gain speed, cost reduction, and higher satisfaction as agents qualify leads and personalize interactions.

  • 🔐 Risks And Governance: Bias, unauthorized transactions, and manipulation risks require human oversight, transparent models, and strong data protection.

  • 🛠️ Start Small, Modernize: Leaders modernize back ends, adopt secure APIs, refresh knowledge bases, and iterate to prove ROI and scale safely.

🎓 Inside Villanova’s Online MSBAi, AI in Every Course

Every one of the 10 courses integrates AI, from AI-assisted coding to decision support. The 16-month online format pairs weekly live sessions with flexible work for professionals.

Key Takeaways:

  • 🤖 AI Across Curriculum: All 10 courses integrate AI, covering AI-assisted coding, data mining, business intelligence, and decision-making.

  • ⏱️ Accelerated And Flexible: The online program lasts 16 months, with weekly live classes, asynchronous modules, and group projects for working professionals.

  • 🧑‍💻 Manual Plus AI Practice: Students learn machine learning manually, then use AI to spot data issues and uncover dynamics in complex datasets.

  • 🌐 Part Of A Larger Trend: Johns Hopkins, NYU, Wharton, and others infuse AI across programs, meeting rising demand for AI fluency in business.

🤖 Most Inc. 5000 CEOs Use AI for Marketing, But Sales Is Surging

Inc. 5000 leaders lean on AI for marketing, yet the fastest growth is in sales and services. Sales adoption jumps 14.5 percentage points year over year.

Key Takeaways:

  • 📊 Marketing Leads Today: 73.5% of Inc. 5000 firms use AI for marketing, making it the top sales-related application.

  • 🚀 Sales Adoption Surges: AI use in sales rises 14.5 points, and services climb 12.3 points year over year, the fastest-growing areas.

  • 🤝 Humans Still Close: Experts say AI excels at lead gen and training, but relationships and closing require people.

  • 💸 Budgets Climb: 64% of CEOs plan to increase sales tech budgets, and about 95% remain optimistic about AI’s impact.

Why It Matters

Agentic AI represents more than incremental automation. Financial institutions that embrace these tools today can enhance efficiency, deliver faster customer experiences, and build a competitive edge that traditional systems cannot match.

Samantha Vale
Editor-in-Chief
Get Nerdy With AI

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