The Three Ways AI Agents Fail. Here's How to Fix Yours.
summary
Enterprise GenAI projects hit silent failures at three concrete layers: tool contracts that return wrong or empty data (MIT NANDA 2025 finds 95% deliver no ROI), memory that misses relationships (ledger modernization fails when RAG never links balance to overdraft) and orchestration where one bad analyzer pollutes migrator and validator (Gartner shows 40% agent cancellations tied to missing risk controls). Fixes: enforce typed inputs, explicit error contracts and idempotency on every tool, choose RAG vs KG or a shallow graph overlay, and apply bounded autonomy plus human sign-off on irreversible steps.
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chapters (9)
- 0:00AI agent failures intro
- 1:11Agent architecture and silent failures
- 3:59Fixing tool failures with schemas
- 9:19Memory limits in retrieval
- 12:10Knowledge graphs for memory
- 14:19Orchestration pitfalls
- 16:03Bounded autonomy and oversight
- 18:10Summary of fixes and adoption
- 19:16Q&A
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