Glossary · ai
AI Agent
Definition
An AI agent is an autonomous AI system that takes a goal, plans its own steps, calls tools, validates results, and iterates if needed. Where a chatbot answers single-turn, an agent runs a multi-step plan-execute-validate loop. LangGraph, CrewAI, Claude Code MCP are leading frameworks.
Detailed explanation
5 main components: LLM (brain), Tool registry (hands — DB query, send email, calculate), Memory (short + long term), Planner (decomposes the task), Executor (run + retry).
Chatbot vs agent: chatbot is single-turn prompt-response; an agent makes multi-step autonomous decisions. "Compare this contract with the competitor offer + report differences + send to customer" → 5-15 step autonomous process.
Production agents: GitHub Copilot Agent, Cursor Agent, Claude Code, Devin, Replit Agent. Multi-agent systems (CrewAI) orchestrate specialists in parallel.
Use cases
→Customer support tier 2 (ticket triage + suggestion)
→Sales operations (CRM data + offer + approval)
→Legal contract review (comparison + risk analysis)
→Code generation + maintenance (issue → PR)
→Data engineering (ETL monitor + auto-debug)
Pros
- +30+ minute autonomous tasks
- +Multi-tool orchestration
- +Safe scaling with human-in-the-loop
- +Automates 30-50% of junior-dev work
Cons
- −Cost tracking required (agent infinite loop = $$ explodes)
- −Hallucination + wrong tool-call risk
- −Observability + audit log mandatory
- −POC easy, production-ready takes 3-6 months
Related terms
Related services
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