An Agent is an autonomous service built on AI models that can reason about tasks, invoke tools, and interact with systems on behalf of an application. Agents aren’t just passive “chatbots”. They plan, break down complex requests, interact with external systems, and deliver results while operating within safety, governance, and audit boundaries.
What Makes an Agent Different from Traditional AI?
Traditional AI systems (including basic generative models) focus on generating text or output in response to direct input. An Agent, on the other hand:
Reason and Plan: It interprets a high-level request, breaks it into logical steps, and decides how to handle each step.
Retrieve and Validate Data: Instead of relying solely on internal learned knowledge, agents fetch real-time or authoritative information from external sources (like knowledge bases, databases, or APIs).
Act with Purpose: Depending on your configuration, agents can trigger workflows, update systems, interact with APIs, or write structured data into enterprise systems.
Operate Safely: They run within defined safety and governance constraints, making them suitable for production-grade tasks where correctness and control matter.
How Agents Work (in Simple Terms)
When your application sends a request to an agent:
Understand the Request: The agent analyzes the intent and context.
Plan and Route Tasks: It determines what work needs to be done and which tools or experts to involve.
Retrieve Necessary Data: Agents fetch external, authoritative data when needed.
Perform Actions: They can act on the environment such as writing back results, triggering workflows, or updating systems, all while adhering to defined safety constraints.
Return Results: Tasks complete with outputs, or immediate messages are returned for quick responses.
Why Use Agents?
Agents enable your applications to benefit from AI that:
Handles complex, multi-step tasks, not just single replies.
Integrates with real-time systems and knowledge sources for accurate, trustworthy output.
Operates within governance and safety boundaries, crucial for production environments.
Scales across workflows and use cases through modular, reusable components.
Want More Information?
Check out our API documentation here.
Alternately, feel free to book our Activations team here.