AgentAI: A comprehensive survey on autonomous agents in distributed AI for industry 4.0

AgentAI represents a transformative approach within distributed Artificial Intelligence (AI) in which autonomous agents work either individually or collaboratively in decentralized environments to address challenging problems. AgentAI enhances scalability, robustness, and flexibility by utilizing advanced communication, learning, and decision-making capabilities, making it integral to diverse applications in Industry 4.0. The ability of AI systems to interpret sensory data in open-world environments has seen significant advancements in recent years. This progress emphasizes the need to move beyond reductionist approaches and embrace more embodied and cohesive systems, which integrate foundational models into agent-driven actions. Existing surveys often focus on isolated domains or specific autonomy levels, lacking a cohesive analysis that spans the full spectrum of AgentAI development in Industry 4.0. This survey explicitly fills this gap by introducing a multi-domain taxonomy and by systematically analyzing both non-autonomous and fully autonomous AgentAI systems, offering a comprehensive synthesis not previously available in the literature. Additionally, the paper extends the discussion to Industry 5.0 and 6.0, exploring the evolution of AgentAI from automation to collaboration and, ultimately, to fully autonomous systems. This comprehensive analysis highlights the potential of AgentAI in driving industries toward a more efficient, sustainable, and adaptable future.