From Autonomy to Agency: Agentic Vehicles for Human-Centered Mobility Systems

Autonomy, from the Greek autos (self) and nomos (law), refers to the capacity to operate according to internal rules without external control. Accordingly, autonomous vehicles (AuVs) are viewed as vehicular systems capable of perceiving their environment and executing pre-programmed tasks independently of external input. However, both research and real-world deployments increasingly showcase vehicles that demonstrate behaviors beyond this definition (including the SAE levels 0 to 5); Examples of this outpace include the interaction with humans with natural language, goal adaptation, contextual reasoning, external tool use, and unseen ethical dilemma handling, largely empowered by multi-modal large language models (LLMs). These developments reveal a conceptual gap between technical autonomy and the broader cognitive and social capabilities needed for future human-centered mobility systems. To address this gap, this paper introduces the concept of agentic vehicles (AgVs), referring to vehicles that integrate agentic AI systems to reason, adapt, and interact within complex environments. This paper proposes the term AgVs and their distinguishing characteristics from conventional AuVs. It synthesizes relevant advances in integrating LLMs and AuVs and highlights how AgVs might transform future mobility systems and ensure the systems are human-centered. The paper concludes by identifying key challenges in the development and governance of AgVs, and how they can play a significant role in future agentic transportation systems.