Artificial intelligence is evolving beyond basic chat interfaces to play an active role in enterprise applications. While initial AI integrations often focus on text generation, summarization, or retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), many business challenges demand more advanced solutions. These require breaking down complex objectives into sequenced tasks and coordinating their execution. The Planning Pattern addresses this need by enabling AI to function as both a content generator and a strategist that creates execution plans. For software engineers and architects, the Planning Pattern marks a significant advancement in intelligent systems. It separates reasoning from execution, allowing applications to use large language models while ensuring governance, observability, and reliability in enterprise settings.