Agentic AI does not suggest. It acts. That single distinction breaks every UX pattern designers have relied on for a decade. This Smashing Magazine piece by is the operational follow-up to a foundational primer on the shift from generative to agentic systems. Where part one defined the taxonomy and the risks, this article delivers six concrete design patterns organized around a lifecycle: Pre-Action, In-Action, and Post-Action. The framing is precise and the stakes are explicit.
The Intent Preview pattern alone is worth reading the full piece. Before any significant action, the agent surfaces a plain-language plan with three explicit user paths: proceed, edit, or override. The article gives a worked example using a flight cancellation agent and then applies the same pattern to a DevOps release agent managing live cloud infrastructure. The jump in domain risk makes the design logic undeniable. Success metrics are specified: plan acceptance above 85 percent, override rate below 10 percent before a model review is triggered, and a recall accuracy test where users must list plan steps 10 seconds after the preview disappears.
Five more patterns follow, covering the Autonomy Dial, Explainable Rationale, Confidence Signals, Action Audit with undo capability, and Escalation Pathways. Each includes failure modes and measurement targets. This is not a think piece. It is a treatment plan for teams already building systems where the AI holds the trigger. Read it before you ship.
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