This week, many of the biggest names in tech gathered in Lisbon for the Web Summit. Web Summit is a massive conference showcasing everything from dancing robots to the influencer economy.
At the Pavilion, a room the size of a warehouse is crammed with stages, booths, and people networking, giving rise to the word “Agent.” A.I.” were everywhere.
There were AI agents that you can wear around your neck in jewelry, software that integrates agents into your workflow, and more than 20 panel discussions on the subject.
This necklace contains an AI agent named Will
Agentic AI is essentially artificial intelligence that can perform specific tasks on its own, such as booking a flight, ordering an Uber, or assisting a customer.
It’s the industry’s current buzzword, and it’s made its way into the real world, with the Daily Mail last week naming “agent” the Gen Z “buzzword.”
Babak Hodjat invented the natural language technology behind Siri
But AI agents are not new. In fact, Babak Hodjat, currently Cognizant’s chief AI officer, invented the technology behind one of the most famous AI agents, Siri, in the 1990s.
Desdemona, a humanoid AI robot musician, will participate in the Web Summit.
“At the time, the fact that Siri itself was multi-agent was a detail that we didn’t even talk about, but it was,” he told Sky News from Lisbon.
“Historically, the first person to talk about things like agents was Alan Turing.”
New or not, AI agents interact with and modify real-world scenarios and are therefore considered to carry even more risks than general-purpose AI.
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The risks associated with AI, such as data bias and unforeseen circumstances in human interactions, are increased as agent AI interacts with the world alone.
“Agentic AI brings new risks and challenges,” the IBM Responsible Technology Committee said in its 2025 report on the technology.
“For example, one of the emerging risks has to do with data bias, where AI agents can modify datasets or databases in ways that introduce bias.
“Here, AI agents perform actions that can impact the world. If the biases introduced go undetected and grow, they can be irreversible.”
This dancing robot from China was a big hit at the conference.
But for Hojat, it’s not the AI agents that he needs to worry about.
“People are overconfident [AI] And then we take their reaction at face value without digging into it or checking to make sure it’s not just a hallucination.
“It is incumbent on us all to learn and educate not only ourselves but our children about what boundaries are, the art of the possible, and how far we can and cannot trust the system.”
His warning will be familiar, especially in Europe, where there is greater alarm about AI than in the United States.
But have we been too cautious about AI? Are we at risk of a greater existential threat in the future?
Jarek Kutylowski founded DeepL, an AI translation company headquartered in Germany.
Jarek Kutilowsky, CEO of German AI language giant DeepL, certainly thinks so.
This year, EU AI legislation came into force that sets out strict regulations on how companies can and cannot use AI.
In the UK, businesses comply with existing laws such as GDPR, and it is uncertain how strict the rules will become in the future.
Asked if AI innovation needs to be slowed down to introduce stricter regulations, Kutilovsky said this is a problem worth addressing…but Europe has gone too far.
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“It’s easy to focus on the obvious risks: What are we missing out on if we don’t have the technology? If the implementation of that technology isn’t successful enough, that’s probably the bigger risk,” Kutilowski said.
“In my view, the risk of Europe being left behind in the AI race is definitely much greater.”
“We won’t know until we start to fall behind and our economy is unable to take advantage of the productivity gains that we’re probably seeing in other parts of the world.
“Personally, I don’t believe that technological progress can be stopped in any way, so the question is rather, ‘How do we practically accept what’s coming?'”
