An AI agent is designed to act toward a goal
An AI agent is a system that receives a goal, plans the steps, and performs work toward it. A traditional chatbot mainly answers a question. An agent can decide which actions are needed and use tools to carry them out.
How is it different from a chatbot?
Ask a chatbot to prepare for a business trip and it may provide a packing list and suggested schedule. An agent may go further by checking train times, comparing options, and adding an approved itinerary to a calendar.
Agents can also observe whether a step succeeded and try a different approach when it did not. That ability to act, inspect, and revise is central to agentic work.
Where are agents becoming practical?
Current agents can operate a computer or browser for research and document work, or take on software-development tasks across files, terminals, and tests.
Organizations are also applying them to multi-site research, routine expense processing, software testing, and other work that contains many steps. The person defines the goal and reviews important decisions while the agent handles part of the procedure.
What are the risks?
An agent that can act can also make a larger mistake than a chatbot. Irreversible steps such as purchasing, sending, deleting, or publishing should normally require human confirmation.
Give the agent not only the goal, but also the budget, deadline, allowed tools, and actions it must not take. Begin with a low-risk task such as collecting information, then expand its permissions only after you understand its behavior.