Agentic AI requires new systems thinking
Bill Doerrfeld | April 20, 2026
My
latest for InfoWorld explores emerging best practices for building agentic systems.
What actually goes into building enterprise-grade AI agents?
Excited to share my new feature for InfoWorld exploring emerging best practices for building agentic systems.
I like how Ari Weil puts it: "Building an AI agent is like constructing a nervous system."
That framing holds up. Getting this right requires coordinating a wide range of components: reasoning models, context, tools and discovery, workflows, orchestration, and security.
My piece reviews these building blocks and digs into new practices like context engineering and agent evaluation, with real-world examples from Shopify and Block.
The main takeaway? Agentic systems aren't just a new layer of automation. They require a new form of systems thinking.
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