The agent era of artificial intelligence has arrived. . In this guide, you’ll find everything you need to know about how AI agents are designed, what they can do, what they’re capable of, and whether they can be trusted to act on your behalf.
What is an AI agent?
Agent AI is a type of generative AI model that can act autonomously, make decisions, and take actions to achieve complex goals without direct human intervention. These systems are able to interpret changing conditions in real time and react accordingly, rather than following predefined rules or instructions by rote. Based on the same great language models that power popular chatbots like ChatGPTClaudius, or GeminiAgent AIs differ in that they use LLM to act on behalf of a user rather than generate content.
AutoGPT and BabyAGI are two of the first examples of AI agents, as they were able to solve reasonably complex queries with minimal supervision. AI agents are considered A first step towards achieving general artificial intelligence. (AIG).
The “third wave” is characterized by generative AI systems that cease to be mere tools for human use and evolve into semi-autonomous actors capable of learning from their environments.
“This is the largest and most exciting piece of technology we’ve ever worked on,” Benioff said of the company’s recently announced Agentforce platform, which allows the company’s enterprise clients to create digital substitutes for their human customer service representatives. . “We’re just getting started.”
What can AI agents do?
Designed to act on behalf of their users, AI agents can perform a surprisingly wide variety of tasks. It can be anything from automatically reviewing and optimizing computer code, to optimizing a company’s supply chain management across multiple suppliers, to checking your calendar availability and then booking a flight and hotel accommodation for an upcoming event. business trip.
AI agents are designed to tackle complex, multi-step problems, such as planning an eight-course dinner, establishing a menu after contacting guests for their availability and possible allergies, and then ordering the necessary ingredients from Instacart. Of course, you will have to cook the food yourself.
Where can I watch a live AI agent?
AI agents are already being deployed in countless industries. You can find agent AI in the banking system, where it helps with fraud detection and automated stock trading tasks. In healthcare, AI agents help patients streamline appointment scheduling and automate prescription refills. Google’s automotive AI agent even Provide near real-time information about local landmarks and restaurants. for Mercedes’ MBUX navigation and entertainment system starting with next year’s CLA.
The technology is also being applied to enterprise businesses, and Salesforce is far from the only SaaS company adopting AI agents. SAP and Oracle Both have similar offers for their own customers.
It should come as no surprise then that industry majors such as Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic and Nvidia are racing to develop and deploy AI agents for the enterprise and consumer markets as well. In November, Microsoft announced co-pilot actionswhich would see Copilot-based agents integrated across the company’s 365 application ecosystem, and started to implement the function to commercial and enterprise users in January 2025.
In November, Google Cloud announced its AI agent ecosystem program, called AI agent spacewhich, like Agentforce or another Google AI agent platform, Vertex AIEnables enterprise customers to develop and deploy their own custom AI agents. Nividia presented its Nemotron model familiesdesigned specifically for agent AI tasks, at CES 2025 earlier this month.
For its part, OpenAI recently introduced its new Tasks feature for ChatGPT allowing users to set future reminders and regularly scheduled tasks (such as weekly news summaries) for the chatbot to complete at a later date. The company is also rumored to be working on its own AI agent. codename: Operatorwhich is expected to launch sometime in January 2025.
Is it safe to use AI agents?
That depends on your definition of “safe.” Because agent AI systems are built on large language models that are prone to hallucinations and susceptible to adversarial attacks, AI agents themselves are prone to hallucinations and can be tricked by malicious actors into behaving outside their barriers. established security. A 2024 study from Apollo ResearchFor example, he found that assigning OpenAI’s o1 model the task of achieving a goal “at all costs” led the AI agent to try to disable its monitoring mechanism before copying “what it thinks are its weights to a new server and then lie about it to its developers,” claiming that it suffered “technical errors.”
Of course, when a chatbot says its response, the stakes are relatively low (unless the user is a lawyer either Googleof course), compared to what would happen if an AI agent hallucinated data about your automated stock trading strategy. As with all generative AI, users must be vigilant about the information (whether financial, medical, or personal) they share with chatbots and LLMs.
