AI Agents and Agentic AI–navigating a plethora of concepts for future manufacturing

IF 14.2 1区工程技术 Q1 ENGINEERING, INDUSTRIAL

Journal of Manufacturing Systems Pub Date : 2025-09-11 DOI:10.1016/j.jmsy.2025.08.017

Yinwang Ren, Yangyang Liu, Tang Ji, Xun Xu

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

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.

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人工智能代理和人工智能代理为未来制造业提供了大量的概念

人工智能代理是设计用于感知、推理和在动态环境中行动的自主系统。随着生成式人工智能（GenAI）的快速发展，大型语言模型（llm）和多模态大型语言模型（mllm）显著提高了人工智能智能体在语义理解、复杂推理和自主决策方面的能力。与此同时，人工智能的兴起强调了在动态和复杂环境中的适应性和目标导向的自主性。基于llms的人工智能代理（LLM-Agents）、基于mllms的人工智能代理（MLLM-Agents）和代理人工智能有助于扩展人工智能在信息处理、环境感知和自主决策方面的能力，为智能制造开辟了新的途径。然而，这些新兴的人工智能范式的定义、能力边界和在智能制造中的实际应用仍然不清楚。为了解决这一差距，本研究系统地回顾了人工智能和人工智能代理技术的发展，研究了llm - agent、mllm - agent和代理人工智能的核心概念和技术进步，并探讨了它们在制造业中的潜在应用和集成，以及它们可能面临的潜在挑战。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Manufacturing Systems 工程技术-工程：工业

CiteScore

23.30

自引率

13.20%

发文量

216

审稿时长

25 days

期刊介绍： The Journal of Manufacturing Systems is dedicated to showcasing cutting-edge fundamental and applied research in manufacturing at the systems level. Encompassing products, equipment, people, information, control, and support functions, manufacturing systems play a pivotal role in the economical and competitive development, production, delivery, and total lifecycle of products, meeting market and societal needs. With a commitment to publishing archival scholarly literature, the journal strives to advance the state of the art in manufacturing systems and foster innovation in crafting efficient, robust, and sustainable manufacturing systems. The focus extends from equipment-level considerations to the broader scope of the extended enterprise. The Journal welcomes research addressing challenges across various scales, including nano, micro, and macro-scale manufacturing, and spanning diverse sectors such as aerospace, automotive, energy, and medical device manufacturing.