AI agent

A chatbot answers one message at a time. An agent takes a goal, such as “find three flights under £200 and add the best one to my calendar”, then decides what to do, uses tools through function calling, looks at the results and keeps going until it is done or needs your input.

Agents are useful for research, coding, customer service and admin work, but they can make mistakes that compound over many steps. Good agents ask for approval before important actions (see human in the loop).