What is an Agentic Workflow?
An agentic workflow is a multi-step process where AI agents autonomously plan, execute, and adapt their actions to complete a complex task — making decisions at each step rather than following a fixed script.
WHY IT MATTERS
Traditional automation follows predefined rules: if X then Y. Agentic workflows are adaptive — the agent decides what to do at each step based on context, intermediate results, and its reasoning capabilities.
Consider processing an invoice. Traditional automation extracts fields from a fixed template. An agentic workflow reads any invoice format, reasons about the content, validates against purchase orders, identifies discrepancies, and routes for approval — handling edge cases a rule-based system would choke on.
The power of agentic workflows comes with a tradeoff: unpredictability. Since the agent reasons about each step, the exact execution path may vary between runs. For financial workflows, this means you need guardrails that constrain outcomes regardless of the path taken.
HOW POLICYLAYER USES THIS
PolicyLayer constrains the financial actions within agentic workflows. Regardless of how an agent reasons about a payment workflow, PolicyLayer ensures every transaction step complies with spending limits, approved recipients, and budget constraints.