AI agents are digital entities that can act **autonomously** without the intervention of humans. Sometimes it's difficult for people to see the difference between agents and software tools, because they both are software (sometimes combined with hardware, like in robots).
But there are very important differences when it comes to the capabilities of agents compared to software tools, and those capabilities have implications for how agents manifest in the real world. Agents act more like humans do. Agents can **reason** and **communicate**, with humans as well as with other agents.
With these reasoning and communication capabilities agents can:
- **Act**
- **Reflect**
- **Plan**
- **Collaborate**
This results in a highly **autonomous AI** that can act on behalf of organizations, individuals or other agents and with that a more active participation in human decision making and workflows.
AI agents are autonomous and tools are not
Tools like most **SaaS solutions** are exactly that, tools. Agents make use of these tools but are fundamentally different because they have very different capabilities. The level of **autonomy** is what sets apart AI agents from tools. Tools are used to enhance a process executed by humans, AI agents can achieve a goal themselves with a sequence of tasks that they perform.
In non-agentic systems, like most software tools, there's a clear input (instruction or click) and output (action or direct result of the input). In agentic systems however, there's a broad description of the desired outcome and the output is generated iteratively and potentially in collaboration with other agents to generate the desired outcome.
The Real-World Impact of AI Agents
Knowing all this, we now can see how AI agents have different implications for the world we live in. Imagine having your own personal AI agent that helps you through your day. Sure, this agent can brainstorm with you on life questions but that's not all. The moment you want to book a flight and have to reschedule your meeting in the afternoon, your personal agent can go do this for you (without you having to open your laptop or getting your phone out).
Also in business, agents are becoming more of a reality. There are already **AI recruiting agents**, **sales agents**, **research agents** and many more who execute on processes that businesses require to run. They fulfill a full position, a role that would otherwise be performed by a human being. Agents can even form **autonomous teams** to fulfill the function of an entire department.
Agents are still pretty early in development but they will soon be the standard for any automation or work that humans want to do in both the virtual and physical context. At some point, manual labor (assisted by tools) will be a marginal piece of the work compared to the work that is produced by AI agents.
The Future of Human-Agent Interaction
AI agents will live next to us to do hard work for us, they will even deserve their own identity which might sound crazy now, but soon you will think it's perfectly normal to call your AI agents by their name, treat them with respect and even start taking a liking to them and probably even love them.
The implications for this are huge. People will spend less, if any time behind their screens. Agents will take over a lot of the manual labor and humans will spend more time on **creative activities** and activities that require **emotional intelligence**.
Agents will work in teams, together with as well humans as other agents to get to outcomes instead of the mere execution of tasks. How this will change the economy and how humans spend their time is uncertain, the only thing that's certain is that things are drastically going to change.
May we live in interesting times.