Agentic artificial intelligence as a new frontier in information systems: Promise, peril, and research opportunities

Agentic artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous systems capable of planning, reasoning, and acting with minimal human oversight, is reshaping enterprise information systems. While early deployments yield efficiency gains and broaden access, they also expose tensions around labor displacement, transparency, governance, and equity. From a socio-technical systems perspectiveS, these tensions are structural consequences of how agentic systems interact with work roles, institutional norms, and governance frameworks. For the information systems (IS) research community, these tensions demand new conceptual frameworks, empirical inquiry, and interdisciplinary collaboration to guide responsible design, deployment, and governance. This research note contributes in three ways: (1) clarifying the architectural and operational foundations of agentic AI and highlighting application domains where IS scholars can advance theory and practice; (2) situating adoption risks within socio-technical perspectives to guide scholarly inquiry into the recursive dynamics between technical autonomy and social structures; and (3) introducing the “agentic AI tradeoff framework,” which outlines six strategic tensions and associated research questions. By critically examining both risks and opportunities, this paper invites IS scholars to shape resilient, equitable, and sustainable pathways for agentic AI integration.