AI Agent
Definition
An AI agent is a system that can take actions to accomplish a goal — not just answer questions, but plan steps, use tools, and carry out tasks across apps with limited human input.
Also known as: AI agents, autonomous agent
An AI agent is a step beyond a chatbot. Where a chatbot answers your questions, an agent acts — it can break a goal into steps, decide which tools to use, carry out those steps, and adjust as it goes, all with limited human supervision.
How an agent differs from a chatbot
Ask a chatbot to “email everyone who hasn’t paid their invoice” and it will explain how you might do it. Give the same goal to an AI agent connected to your systems, and it can actually look up the unpaid invoices, draft the emails, and send them — checking in with you where needed.
The difference is autonomy and tool use. An agent is built around a language model for reasoning, but it’s also given access to tools (email, databases, APIs) — increasingly through standards like MCP — so it can take real actions in the world.
Why agents matter for business
Agents are what turn AI from a helpful assistant into something that removes whole tasks from your plate. Well-scoped agents can handle multi-step work like processing documents, routing requests, or keeping systems in sync. The key word is well-scoped: the most reliable agents are given a clear, bounded job and a human check on anything high-risk.
AI agent in one sentence
An AI agent is an AI system that can plan and take actions to complete a task, not just answer questions about it.