Definition
An AI agent can be thought of as a longer-running AI-powered process that can use models, tools, external systems, and sometimes other agents to accomplish a goal.
A travel agent is a useful example. It could potentially:
- Understand a user’s travel preferences.
- Search for flights.
- Search for hotels.
- Compare available options.
- Take actions through external systems.
- Continue managing tasks based on changing conditions.
The important shift is from simply generating an answer to taking a sequence of actions to achieve an objective.
Why It Matters
Agents shift the product discussion from answers toward goal-oriented actions — which changes how you think about reliability, guardrails, and what “done” looks like.