An AI agent is an autonomous system or model built on a large language model that can make judgments and take actions on behalf of users or other systems. AI agents interact with users and the environment in which they were trained, and also have the added functionalities to access tools external to this environment in order to make decisions. For example, an existing traditional large language model (LLM) is easily able to create a travel itinerary if a user prompts it with a destination. An AI agent – in its ultimate, autonomous form – will be able to go beyond this to independently learn a user’s preferences to book their flight tickets and make hotel reservations.

AI agents make decisions based on the information they gather as well as user behavior, allowing them to learn and improve over time. They can have various uses in enterprise settings, such as customer service, process automation, and driving innovation. This blog provides an overview of how AI agents work, potential applications, and risks associated with their use.