Continuing my series on decision agents, here’s the second post.
- How AI Agents and Decision Agents Combine Rules & ML in Automation.
- Building Decision Agents with LLMs & Machine Learning Models [this post]
- Designing AI Decision Agents with DMN, Machine Learning & Analytics
If you are building a sophisticated agentic AI system that is intended to solve complex, real-world problems, you’re going to need decision agents. These systems must make autonomous decisions that directly impact customers, operations, and business outcomes. However, the technology that powers modern agentic AI—large language models—creates a fundamental paradox: while LLMs excel at many tasks, they are poorly suited for the precise, consistent, and transparent decision-making that business-critical applications require.
So why are Generative AI models, LLMs, unsuitable for advanced decision-making? Several reasons:
- They are inconsistent by design, not something we look for in decision-making
- They are opaque and black-boxy, making it hard to explain why a decision was made
- They are poor at mathematical analysis and much worse than other machine learning techniques
- It’s hard to make small, focused changes to their behavior, limiting continuous business-driven improvement
A good decision agent should be ruthlessly consistent, completely transparent, easy to change, accessible to domain experts and able to embed advanced analytics and machine learning. Which means they should be built using a platform that meets these criteria – a Decision Platform or a Business Rules Management System. These are widely used and are ideal for building decision agents. For instance, Decision Agents can leverage any of IBM’s Decisions technology – IBM Operational Decision Manager (ODM), Automation Decision Services (ADS), Decision Manager Open Edition (DMOE) or the new Decision Intelligence.
Plus, these platforms can be enhanced with generative AI by using it to ingest unstructured information, explain decisions made in natural language and suggest improvements.
To learn more about decision agents, there are two options:
- For those who prefer video, check out Building Decision Agents with LLMs & Machine Learning Models on the IBM Technology channel
- For those that prefer to read, download our white paper on Building Effective Decision Agents.
Connect with me here or on LinkedIn if you want to talk about doing this in your own environment.
