The next chapter of the artificial intelligence (AI) market is descending upon us quickly with agentic AI. Agentic AI goes beyond generative AI, such as AI chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Alphabet's Gemini, and uses AI agents to complete tasks on their own. While that still sounds a bit like science fiction, it is a hot field with a multitude of players.
Perhaps the biggest issue with agentic AI is that AI is still prone to "hallucinations," where it just makes up answers. That's a less serious problem with generative AI, as humans can spot errors and double-check the answers that AI is generating. However, it becomes a bigger concern when AI agents are working as a virtual workforce and performing actions that are detrimental to a business. At the same time, organizations are increasingly having to deal with AI agents from multiple vendors, as many software providers have designed their own AI agents.
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The emergence of an agentic AI orchestration leader
The company that is perhaps best situated to become a winner in this emerging environment is UiPath (PATH 6.18%). UiPath made its mark as a leader in robotic process automation (RPA). This was like a forerunner to AI agents, where software bots could automate simple rule-based tasks like data entry or customer onboarding. Still, software bots could not just be left to their own devices, and UiPath's platform implemented strict governance and compliance protocols. Its platform also gave it access to legacy systems.
NYSE: PATH
Key Data Points
Today, UiPath has taken that RPA foundation and created an AI agent orchestration platform called Maestro. The company has set up Maestro to be the Switzerland of AI agent management, letting customers govern and manage AI agents from any vendor. On top of that, Maestro can also assign humans, software bots, and AI agents the tasks best suited to them. Software bots are much cheaper than AI agents, so it is still highly beneficial for organizations to use them to automate simple tasks and not just use high-priced AI agents for everything.
UiPath is still at the very beginning of its AI agent orchestration journey, but the company did see its revenue growth begin to accelerate last quarter. AI agent orchestration will become a growing need in the coming years, and UiPath is the company best positioned to lead in this emerging field. Meanwhile, its stock is cheap, trading at a forward price-to-sales multiple of below 4.5 and a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 19. If the company can continue to accelerate its revenue growth, the stock could define the next chapter of the AI market.
