> Markdown version of [/events/world-congress-2026-north-america/sessions/1878-the-next-wave-of](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-north-america/sessions/1878-the-next-wave-of). Every page supports `.md` or `Accept: text/markdown`. Links point to the HTML versions so they work for humans too. Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md).

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# The Next Wave of Agents: What’s Real, What’s Next, and What Matters


- **Date:** Thursday, Sep 24, 2026
- **Time:** 11:40–12:10 (30 min)
- **Room:** Stage 1
- **Event:** World Congress 2026 North America

## Description

Artificial intelligence is undergoing a foundational shift from passive, generative model outputs toward goal-oriented, autonomous operational execution. Agentic AI represents an architectural evolution beyond static prompt-response systems, combining reasoning, memory, planning, and external tool execution to act independently within complex environments. Further, organizations face real-world challenges in reliability, safety, governance, and system orchestration. In this panel, we will discuss what the current capabilities of agentic systems and how its impact is measured. We will also discuss architectural breakthroughs driving next wave of agents which consists of multi-agent collaboration, tool integration and persistent memory how to move agents from pilots to production. Lastly, the discussion will map out what lies ahead for leader navigating the transition to an agentic future.

## Speaker

### [Mitesh Patel](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/@mitesh-patel)

NVIDIA Corporation, Developer Advocate -- Manager


## Related talks at this congress

- [The Missing Infrastructure for AI Agents](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-north-america/sessions/1928-the-missing) — Chris Waterson
- [Closing the Visibility Gap: Lessons from Safety Critical Agentic Systems](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-north-america/sessions/1408-closing-the) — Vivek Pandit
- [When Agents Became Users: Rearchitecting Identity and Permissions for AI at Scale](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-north-america/sessions/1713-when-agents-became) — Yoav Gal
- [AI Agents are Only as Smart as their Context: Building a Real-Time Context Engine at Intuit](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-north-america/sessions/1736-ai-agents-are-only) — Bharat Patel

## Watch remotely

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## Links

- [Get tickets](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/world-congress-north-america/tickets)