An AI agent is an AI system that independently carries out a task in several steps – it can plan, look things up, use tools and keep working towards a goal without asking along the way.
A chatbot is reactive: you ask, it answers, and then it waits for you again. An agent is given a task rather than a question. It decides for itself which steps are needed, carries them out in sequence and comes back with a result.
For workflows, this is a bigger shift than it sounds. With a chatbot you delegate wording; with an agent you delegate processes. That requires you to decide which tasks the machine may carry out on its own – and where a human has to approve before anything is sent.
In practice
Every morning, an agent can gather the overnight press coverage, summarise the most important items, hold them up against your key messages and have a draft of the internal briefing ready – before you have poured your coffee. Your role shifts from gathering to assessing and approving.
How to explain it to management
“A chatbot answers when we ask – an agent solves a task from start to finish. That is why we need to decide which tasks it may solve on its own.”
On my AI training day, participants build small mini-agents themselves and feel the difference first-hand.