Artificial intelligence is entering a new phase where intelligent agents – computer programs that can think, plan, and act on their own – are becoming tools that real companies use every day. During this weekly update, companies announced major breakthroughs in making these AI agents useful for professionals and industries around the world.

One of the biggest announcements came from Thomson Reuters, a global information company based in Canada. On November 5, they launched new AI agent tools designed specifically for professionals who need to do complex work. These tools include ONESOURCE+, which is an intelligent network for following rules and staying compliant with laws. The company also released upgraded versions of CoCounsel, which are AI assistants that help with taxes, accounting, legal work, and following regulations. What makes these tools special is that they can handle multiple steps on their own – like reading a legal document, analyzing it, suggesting changes, and creating a final report – without a person telling them what to do for each small step. These tools will be available to U.S. customers starting in early 2026.

Healthcare and manufacturing are also getting AI agents this week. In the United States, UT Southwestern Medical Center partnered with IBM Fusion to use new NVIDIA computer chips designed for AI agents. These super-powerful computers let hospitals process huge amounts of medical information and help doctors do research faster. The system can read messy, unorganized data – like doctor's notes and research papers – and turn it into information that AI agents can use to find answers.

Cisco, an American technology company, announced a new platform called Unified Edge for running AI agents at locations spread out across networks. Instead of sending all information to one big computer center far away, this platform lets AI agents run closer to where people work – in offices, stores, factories, and stadiums. This is important because AI agents use a lot of internet bandwidth. Regular chatbots use a certain amount of internet traffic, but AI agents can use up to 25 times more traffic.

Scientists published exciting research on making AI agents smarter and more powerful. One team created AgentFlow, a system that teaches AI agents to plan better and use tools more reliably. Another team built ReasoningBank, which is like a memory system for AI agents – it saves what the agent learned from both successes and failures, and uses those lessons to solve new problems faster. These research projects show that AI agents can learn continuously and get better over time without needing to be completely retrained.

Industry experts explained that the real future of agentic AI is not just speed or power, but understanding and teamwork. The best AI agents need to understand how a company's processes work, not just follow orders. They need to work alongside people, explaining their decisions so humans can trust them. Experts call this "accountable autonomy" – the ability for AI to work independently while staying transparent and answerable to human oversight. Companies in regulated industries – like finance, healthcare, and manufacturing – are seeing the biggest opportunities right now.