6 Levels of Agentic AI

From one prompt to loop engineering. Levels 1–5 are capabilities — level 6 is the craft of wiring them into a controlled loop.

1) Basic Responder

Prompt in, answer out — no tools, no memory.

User
LLM
Answer

2) Router Pattern

Router picks the model: strong for hard, cheap for easy.

User
Router
Strong model
Small model
Answer

3) Tool Calling

Calls real tools via MCP, then answers with facts.

User
LLM
via MCP
Web search
Booking API
Database
Answer

4) Multi-agent

Manager delegates to specialists, then merges their work.

User
Manager
Research
Write
Review
Answer

5) Autonomous

Generates, self-checks, and loops until the answer is valid.

User
Generator
Validator
Final

6) Loop Engineering★

Glue LLM, tools & agents into one looping workflow.

User
orchestration · the loop
Plan
LLM
Reflect
Tools
Answer
Levels 1–5 are capabilities. Level 6 is the craft: wiring those capabilities into a controlled loop — plan, call the model, use tools, reflect — that knows when to keep going and when to stop. That's the difference between a demo and a system.