Designing conversational agent(ic) systems

While researchers have been studying and building AI agents and autonomous systems for decades, generative AI and novel architectures have enabled a new generation of agentic systems. New frameworks are making it easier to create agentic systems in which agents powered by generative AI support more complex and ambiguous tasks with less human intervention. As agentic systems become easier to build and deploy, it is important to understand the capabilities, benefits, risks, and design considerations around these systems. In this tutorial, we introduce concepts and considerations behind designing building agentic systems in particular in the context of conversational systems. We address not only the basics of modern agentic systems, but also how these new systems relate to existing knowledge around the design of conversational interfaces.