Generative AI, Agentic State and Quasi-Otherness: Configurations of Post-Digitality in Contemporary Europe

This contribution develops a theoretical reflection on the concept of post-digitality, proposing an alternative interpretation and defining it as an emerging socio-technical paradigm for understanding the transformations generated by the dynamic interaction between society, politics and technology in the era of generative artificial intelligence and the future scenarios opened by agentic AI (Pane, 2025). Starting from the theoretical framework and empirical results of the doctoral research, focused on the integration of AI into the public communication of the European Union through experiments with institutional chatbots, the study, based on a qualitative design combining in-depth interviews (n=74), participant observation (n=3) and policy analysis (n=90), explores the emerging relationship between human and non-human agency, questioning the role of artificial intelligence as a communicative actor and producer of meaning. The analysis reveals a hybrid condition in which communicative action is distributed among human subjects, generative tools and decision-automation systems, within a context marked by the growing integration of generative AI (Pane et al., 2025). Recent literature adds another dimension to this framework: agentic AI, which opens the future perspective of the agentic state, conceived as a new interpretative horizon of public governance characterized by unprecedented relationships between human beings and intelligent systems. This perspective makes it possible to understand how artificial intelligences, conceived in a plural and relational sense, are progressively redefining the logics of production, legitimation and circulation of public discourse, as well as democratic legitimacy, giving rise to a form of “quasi-otherness” in which technology tends to be configured as a communicating subject rather than a mere technical object. This new concept stems from previous research on “artificial sociality” (Natale & Depounti, 2024). The work argues that post-digitality does not end in the technological dimension but constitutes an epistemic regime in which authenticity, authority and communicative legitimacy are redefined. This transformation deeply affects the relationship between citizens and institutions, introducing new dynamics of trust, transparency and participation in the European public sphere. In this perspective, European communication emerges as a key site where post-digitality is materially enacted and contested: the integration of generative and increasingly agentic AI into EU public communication, exemplified by institutional chatbots and automated decision-support systems, reconfigures the production, legitimation and circulation of public discourse. As communicative action becomes distributed across human actors and algorithmic systems, artificial intelligence takes on a form of quasi-otherness, operating as a communicative subject rather than a mere technical artifact. This transformation reshapes the dynamics of trust, transparency and democratic legitimacy in the European public sphere, foregrounding the EU as a laboratory of post-digital governance in which new socio-technical relations redefine how institutions and citizens interact.