AI Agent
Also called: Agent, Intelligent Agent
An AI agent is a software system that uses an AI model to plan and execute multi-step tasks autonomously, with minimal human intervention. Unlike a chatbot, an agent acts: browsing the web, writing and running code, managing files and triggering workflows. It observes its environment, holds state across steps, adjusts on feedback and calls external tools and business systems to finish the job.
In practice
Given access to your inbox and calendar, an agent does not just summarise a meeting: it schedules the follow-up, updates the project record and sends the briefing note unprompted. That single example contains both the value and the control problem. Decide in advance which of those actions require a human signature and which do not.