Visibility is the product
An agent that acts without showing its working forces people to trust a black box. Agentic UI should surface the active goal, the current plan, progress, sources, assumptions, uncertainty, and the proposed next action.
Progressive disclosure keeps complex work navigable: show the summary first, then open the trail of tool calls, evidence, and alternatives when someone needs to intervene. Preserve an understandable history so decisions can be reviewed without reconstructing chat archaeology.
Control is a first-class interaction
People must be able to edit, reject, pause, redirect, and approve work. Require explicit confirmation before external communication, payment, deletion, permission changes, publication, or any other consequential effect.
Accessibility belongs in the same design: keyboard operation, clear status announcements, recoverable failures, and interruption that does not strand assistive-technology users. An agent people can command—and stop—is more valuable than one that only impresses in uninterrupted flow.