What Is An AI Agent AI agents are seen as the next big revolution in the AI field. However, a clear definition has not been established. So far, experts are divided on the exact nature of an AI agent.
In general, an AI agent can be considered software that can automatically perform tasks that a customer service representative, HR staff, or IT help desk employee would do. It can perform those tasks at your request. It can go far beyond the current AI chatbots that coordinate between different systems and answer questions.
For example, Perplexity last month unveiled an AI agent that helps people with holiday shopping. In addition, Google last week announced its first AI agent, “Project Mariner,” which can help people find flights and hotels, buy household goods and find dishes.
Google envisions AI agents as task-based assistants, such as coding assistance for developers, helping marketers plan calls, or querying log files for IT professionals to find solutions to problems. In fact, AI agents can act like extra employees, taking on the tasks of colleagues. A startup called Sierra sees AI agents as tools to improve customer experience. The company was founded by Salesforce co-CEO Brett Taylor and former Google employee Clay Bevor.
Challenges of Building AI Agents
This technology is in its early stages. As such, there is no consensus on it. There is no single or concrete definition of what an AI agent is. However, most consider it to be an intelligent software system that understands its environment, reasons about it, makes decisions, and automatically achieves certain goals.
Over time, AI agents will be able to do more work on behalf of humans. However, this will require improvements in GPU price/performance, model quality, and AI frameworks.
The journey to the future
AI agents require a specific technical infrastructure to develop. The industry still has a long way to go in building a foundational platform for AI agents. At present, no single large language model can meet the needs of AI agents. AI agents will be built from a combination of different models, where tasks will be divided automatically.
Ultimately, the goal of AI agents is to become fully automated systems, not guided by humans. However, we are still in the early stages of this path. AI agents hold great potential for the future, but further technological development is needed to achieve the automation capabilities envisioned today.
