No one knows what the hell an AI agent is | TechCrunch
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AI agents are all the rage. But no one knows exactly what an agent is, partly because companies define them radically differently.

Silicon Valley is bullish on AI agents. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said agents will “join the workforce” this year. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella predicted that agents will replace certain knowledge work. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said that Salesforce’s goal is to be “the number one provider of digital labor in the world” via the company’s various “agentic” services.

But no one can seem to agree on what an AI agent is, exactly.

In the last few years, the tech industry has boldly proclaimed that AI “agents” — the latest buzzword — are going to change everything. In the same way that AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT gave us new ways to surface information, agents will fundamentally change how we approach work, claim CEOs like Altman and Nadella.

That may be true. But it also depends on how one defines “agents,” which is no easy task. Much like other AI-related jargon (e.g. “multimodal,” “AGI,” and “AI” itself), the terms “agent” and “agentic” are becoming diluted to the point of meaninglessness.

  • DilAEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    idk im sick of ai rnow, everytime I start to like it a bit I get so many bugs that I end up doing 3x as much mental work as I wouldve if I has just learned it myself done it, at least 3x sometimes 20x becsuse in the end I do learn it myself and can see the difference in time lol

    Just stubborn and really want it to work, feels like it has the answer and im just asking the right question (because that is also true sometimes, a little bit more context and it works, im over it, its like a game, not a tool)