An AI agent is a system built to pursue a goal by taking a series of actions, rather than simply responding once. Where a basic chatbot answers your question and stops, an agent can plan steps, use tools (like searching the web, running code or calling other software), check its own progress and keep going until the task is done.
Agents are an active, fast-moving area of AI. They are powerful for multi-step jobs — research, scheduling, data gathering — but because they act on their own, they need clear limits and human oversight, especially for anything that sends messages, spends money or changes real data.
Related terms
Large Language Model (LLM) · Generative AI · API (Application Programming Interface)