Artificial intelligence (AI) has started the year with an explosion of announcements, launches and thousands of tutorials. If you are in the middle of technology and have shown any interest in AI topics, they will not stop bombarding you with information about new startups and frameworks developmental. It seems like everyone, including us, is talking about intelligent agents: those AI entities designed to perform tasks autonomously.
The volume of news and information related to such topics can be overwhelming. But among all that noise, two recent announcements stand out for their unique and practical approach: NVIDIA’s keynote at CES and the introduction of the smolagents by Hugging Face. Both reveal key insights into how agents are evolving and, more importantly, how organizations can use them to mature their AI strategies.
These announcements are much more than just product updates: they represent a shift in the way we think about agents, from tools confined to the digital realm to real-world systems capable of solving tangible problems. For businesses, developers and innovators, they offer practical lessons for navigating the next chapter of AI.
NVIDIA, from the digital world to the physical world
At CES 2025, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang presented a vision that takes AI agents beyond the digital domain. The center of this vision is integrating agents into PCs and enabling training platforms that treat them as “digital employees.” This approach makes agents easier to onboard, configure, and deploy for business tasks, reducing barriers to adoption.
But the real headline was the leap from digital agents to physical AI. By integrating agents into robots and autonomous systems, NVIDIA demonstrated how AI can transform industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, and logistics. Imagine robots with the cognitive flexibility of agents, capable of not only executing tasks but also adapting to new situations.
Huang’s analogy of training agents as employees is key. Reframe the conversation about agents, highlighting their potential to align with business goals, just like a well-trained workforce.
Hugging Face: back to basics with smolagents
While NVIDIA focused on scaling AI to the physical world, Hugging Face presented a refreshingly simple approach to building agents with smolagents. This framework It allows developers to create agents as modular functions, taking advantage of the strengths of large language models (LLMs) to write and execute code.
The genius of smolagents lies in its simplicity. It is designed to work with tools and concepts familiar to IT engineers. softwareavoiding the extra work that often accompanies new frameworks of Generative AI. By treating agents as functions with cognitive capabilities, smolagents They reduce barriers for developers to experiment and iterate, making it easier to deploy in today’s enterprise architecture.
How this trend can shape your AI strategy
Together, NVIDIA and Hugging Face highlight two complementary aspects of the AI agent landscape: scaling to the physical world and simplifying digital deployments. Some tips to mature your AI strategy:
- Start small, think big: Use tools like smolagents to test the capabilities of agents in specific use cases. Small achievements can be the foundation for larger investments.
- Integrate physical AI: For industries with high operational needs, evaluate how agents can optimize physical processes, from robotics to logistics in real time. It seems very early to take this to scale, but technology moves very quickly today, it doesn’t hurt to start exploring this space as soon as possible.
- Focus on business value: Align AI initiatives with measurable results, whether improving efficiency, improving customer experience or reducing costs. At every step of the AI design and implementation process, ask “what is the business value in this thing we are doing?”
These announcements also underscore a broader trend: the importance of accessibility in driving AI adoption. By combining lightweight tools with scalable applications, companies can embrace AI while preparing for more ambitious transformations. This is extremely important as there are thousands of options and services that businesses can use. Starting in the right direction and with the right tools is crucial to being able to accelerate and maximize business impact.
The year is just beginning, but the announcements from NVIDIA and Hugging Face set the tone for what’s to come in AI. Their approaches—jumping into the physical world and getting back to the basics of programming—offer valuable lessons for businesses and developers alike. The future of agents is not just about what they can do, but how we use them to solve problems, drive innovation, and create lasting impact. Without a doubt, 2025 will be a very productive and entertaining year for lovers of these topics.
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