Is It An AI Agent Or Just A Chatbot?

Not that long ago, almost every AI conversation seemed to involve chatbots. Now everything appears to be an agent, whether it’s helping with customer service, carrying out research, shopping on our behalf or getting things done at work. At this rate, we’ll probably need an agent to help us choose between all the other agents.

There is a genuine difference between the two, although it isn’t always as clear as the labels suggest.

• A chatbot generally responds to questions and prompts
• While an AI agent can work towards a goal with more independence.

That could involve finding information, using different tools, deciding what needs to happen next or completing several steps without someone guiding it through each one.

When Does A Chatbot Become An Agent?

This is where the distinction starts to get messy. Chatbots can now;

• search the internet
• remember information
• access other systems
• and sometimes complete tasks

All of which start to sound quite agent-like. At the same time, some products described as agents still need plenty of instructions from the person using them.

Imagine asking AI to help organise a weekend away. A chatbot might recommend hotels, suggest restaurants and put together an itinerary, leaving you to make the actual arrangements. An agent could go further by searching for suitable options, comparing them against your preferences and potentially taking some of those actions for you.

It means there isn’t always a neat point where a chatbot suddenly becomes an agent. The more useful distinction may be how independently the AI can operate once you’ve told it what you want to achieve.

Does The Label Actually Matter?

Agent has quickly become one of the most popular words in AI, and there’s an obvious temptation to use it because it sounds more advanced than chatbot. But the label also creates expectations about what the technology can do, particularly if something described as an agent still needs you to prompt it through most of the process.

There’s nothing wrong with something simply being a chatbot either. Plenty of situations don’t require AI to make decisions or take actions on our behalf, and if a customer just wants to know when their parcel will arrive, a good chatbot that gives them the right answer quickly may be exactly what they need.

As AI products gain more capabilities, the boundary between chatbots and agents will probably keep moving. Rather than getting too caught up in what something is called, it may be more useful to ask how much it can actually do once you’ve told it what you want.