An agent is an autonomous service built on Symphony that reasons about tasks, calls tools, and interacts with systems on behalf of your application. It's not a chatbot. It plans. It breaks down complex requests, talks to external systems, and delivers results - within the safety, governance, and audit boundaries you define.
How agents are different
Traditional AI responds to input. An agent does more.
It interprets a high-level request and figures out the steps needed to complete it. It pulls real-time data from knowledge bases, databases, or APIs rather than relying solely on what it was trained on. It can trigger workflows, update systems, and write structured data into enterprise tools. And it does all of this within defined safety constraints, so it's suitable for production environments where correctness and control matter.
How it works
When your application sends a request:
The agent reads the intent and context.
It figures out what work needs doing and which tools or specialists to involve.
It fetches external data when needed.
It acts: writing back results, triggering workflows, updating systems - all within your safety config.
It returns an output or surfaces an immediate response for quick replies.
Why it matters
Agents let your application handle multi-step tasks, not just single-turn replies. They connect to real-time systems for accurate, trustworthy output. And they operate within governance boundaries - which matters a lot when you're building for production.