Agentic AI and Entrepreneurship: Bright and Dark Sides Across the Venture Cycle

Closes:
Journal
Journal of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies
Guest editor(s)
Prof. Dr. Victor Tiberius, Dr. Alhamzah Al Sayed Noor, Prof. Dr. Mumtaz Ali Memon,

Introduction

This special issue focuses on how agentic artificial intelligence reshapes entrepreneurship across the main stages of the entrepreneurial process, including opportunity recognition, venture creation, business model development, scaling, growth, internationalisation, and exit. Agentic AI is different from earlier forms of digital technology because it can perceive context, plan tasks, use tools, coordinate actions, and learn from feedback with limited human supervision (Dwivedi et al., 2026; Islam et al., 2026). Therefore, it does not only support entrepreneurs as a passive technology. It may also become an active co-agent in entrepreneurial decision-making and venture development. The debate on agentic AI and entrepreneurship is still emerging. Previous studies have shown that AI and big data are transforming entrepreneurship by influencing opportunity recognition, entrepreneurial decision-making, innovation, and venture performance (Obschonka & Audretsch, 2020; Shepherd & Majchrzak, 2022; Giuggioli & Pellegrini, 2023). More recent studies have started to explain how agentic AI, generative AI, and meta-entrepreneurship may create new forms of entrepreneurial action, co-agency, and ecosystem transformation (Al-Bashrawi et al., 2026; Elgendy et al., 2025; Zhang & Siau, 2024).

On the bright side, agentic AI may support entrepreneurs by improving opportunity recognition, market analysis, customer discovery, resource mobilisation, financial planning, product development, and strategic decision-making. It may also reduce information gaps, support small firms with limited resources, and enable new forms of AI-native ventures. In this view, agentic AI can strengthen entrepreneurial capability and allow entrepreneurs to act faster and more effectively in uncertain markets (Al-Bashrawi et al., 2026; Lambert et al., 2026). However, the dark side of agentic AI is equally important. Agentic AI may create overdependence on automated systems, weaken entrepreneurial judgment, increase algorithmic bias, raise accountability problems, and produce new forms of digital inequality between entrepreneurs who can access advanced AI systems and those who cannot. It may also affect entrepreneurial identity, creativity, autonomy, and ethical responsibility. In addition, the use of autonomous AI agents in venture creation and scaling may create new governance problems related to data privacy, transparency, trust, and responsibility for AI-driven decisions (Shepherd & Majchrzak, 2022; Mariani & Dwivedi, 2024; Ojong, 2025).

This special issue therefore aims to advance the debate by examining both the bright and dark sides of agentic AI in entrepreneurship. It welcomes studies that explain when agentic AI enables entrepreneurial value creation and when it creates new risks, tensions, and unintended consequences. The special issue also encourages theoretical development by connecting agentic AI with entrepreneurship theories such as entrepreneurial agency, opportunity creation and discovery, effectuation, resource orchestration, dynamic capabilities, institutional theory, entrepreneurial cognition, and entrepreneurial ecosystems. Although the journal has a clear interest in emerging economies, the special issue will not be limited only to these contexts. It welcomes papers from emerging economies, advanced economies, and comparative settings. This broader scope is important because research on agentic AI and entrepreneurship is still at an early stage. Comparative studies can show how institutional conditions, digital infrastructure, regulation, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and market maturity shape the adoption and consequences of agentic AI (Islam et al., 2026; Lambert et al., 2026). Sustainability, social innovation, and inclusive entrepreneurship may also be addressed, but as specific contexts rather than the central focus of the special issue (Duong, 2025; Ojong, 2025).

List of Topic Areas

  • Agentic AI and opportunity recognition in entrepreneurship.
  • Agentic AI and entrepreneurial decision-making under uncertainty.
  • Human-AI co-agency and entrepreneurial judgment.
  • Agentic AI and new venture creation.
  • AI-native startups and autonomous venture development.
  • Agentic AI and business model innovation.
  • Agentic AI and venture scaling, growth, and internationalisation.
  • Agentic AI and entrepreneurial exit decisions.
  • The bright side of agentic AI in entrepreneurship, including speed, efficiency, creativity, resource mobilisation, and market intelligence.
  • The dark side of agentic AI in entrepreneurship, including bias, dependency, loss of autonomy, accountability problems, digital inequality, and ethical risks.
  • Agentic AI and entrepreneurial cognition, identity, and creativity.
  • Trust, resistance, and adoption of agentic AI among entrepreneurs and SMEs.
  • Agentic AI and entrepreneurial ecosystems.
  • Agentic AI in emerging economies and resource-constrained contexts.
  • Comparative studies of agentic AI and entrepreneurship across emerging and advanced econmies.
  • Agentic AI in sustainable entrepreneurship, social innovation, and inclusive entrepreneurship.
  • Governance, regulation, and responsible use of agentic AI in entrepreneurial settings.
  • Methodological approaches for studying agentic AI and entrepreneurship, including experiments, longitudinal studies, qualitative research, mixed methods, fsQCA, SEM, ANN, and digital trace data.

Submission Information

Submissions of full manuscripts are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available here:

Submit via ScholarOne

Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see:

Author guidelines

Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to “Please select the issue you are submitting to”.

Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

Key Dates

Opening date for manuscript submissions: 1 September 2026

Closing date for manuscript submissions: 1 December 2026

 

References 

Abaddi, S. (2024). GPT revolution and digital entrepreneurial intentions. Journal of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies, 16(6), 1903–1930.

Al-Bashrawi, M. A., Al-Sharafi, M. A., Elgendy, I. A., Helal, M. Y. I., Anbalagan, M. K., Chae, I., & Dwivedi, Y. K. (2026). Agentic AI systems and the future of entrepreneurship: A perspective on co-agency, innovation, and ecosystem transformation. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 22(1), Article 27.

Duong, C. D. (2025). How AI-enabled drivers inspire sustainability-oriented entrepreneurial intentions: Unraveling the incongruent effects of perceived desirability and feasibility from the entrepreneurial event model perspective. Sustainable Development, 33(4), 6228–6246.

Dwivedi, Y. K., Helal, M. Y. I., Elgendy, I. A., Alahmad, R., Walton, P., Suh, A., Singh, V., & Jeon, I. (2026). Agentic AI systems: What it is and isn’t. Global Business and Organizational Excellence, 45(3), 253–263.

Elgendy, I. A., Helal, M. Y. I., Al-Sharafi, M. A., Albashrawi, M. A., Al-Ahmadi, M. S., Jeon, I., & Dwivedi, Y. K. (2025). Agentic systems as catalysts for innovation in FinTech: Exploring opportunities, challenges and a research agenda. Information Discovery and Delivery.

Giuggioli, G., & Pellegrini, M. M. (2023). Artificial intelligence as an enabler for entrepreneurs: A systematic literature review and an agenda for future research. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 29(4), 816–837.

Islam, M. A., Rahman, M., Dal Mas, F., Haque, S. E., & Hani, U. (2026). Navigating institutional and capability barriers in agentic artificial intelligence adoption: Evidence from small and medium enterprises in Bangladesh. VINE Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems.

Islam, M. A., Somu, S., & Aldaihani, F. M. (2026). The rise of agentic AI: Synthesis of current knowledge and future research agenda. Global Business and Organizational Excellence, 45(3).

Lambert, J. M., Laskovaia, A., Garanina, O., & Bogatyreva, K. (2026). Smarter, not harder: The AI capability paradox in emerging-market SMEs. Journal of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies, 18(3), 813–836.

Mariani, M., & Dwivedi, Y. K. (2024). Generative artificial intelligence in innovation management: A preview of future research developments. Journal of Business Research, 175, Article 114542.

Obschonka, M., & Audretsch, D. B. (2020). Artificial intelligence and big data in entrepreneurship: A new era has begun. Small Business Economics, 55, 529–539.

Ojong, N. (2025). Interrogating the economic, environmental, and social impact of artificial intelligence and big data in sustainable entrepreneurship. Business Strategy and the Environment, 34(7), 8305–8320.

Shepherd, D. A., & Majchrzak, A. (2022). Machines augmenting entrepreneurs: Opportunities and threats at the nexus of artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Venturing, 37(4), Article 106227.

Zhang, Y., & Siau, K. (2024). Meta-entrepreneurship: An analysis theory on integrating generative AI, agentic AI, and metaverse for entrepreneurship. Journal of Global Information Management, 32(1), 1–21.