What is AI agent?
An AI system that doesn't just answer — it plans steps and uses tools (browser, apps, code) to complete a task for you.
A chatbot replies to one message at a time. An agent is given a goal (“find three hotels in Jaipur under ₹4,000 for Diwali weekend and compare them”) and then searches, clicks, reads, and reports back, deciding its own next steps along the way.
Agents are powerful but can make mistakes at any step, so good ones ask before doing anything costly or irreversible, like paying or sending messages. Keep a human in the loop for those actions.
Everyday use
Coding agents that build and test an app, research agents that compile a report with sources, and shopping agents that compare products are all early examples.
Related terms
The type of AI behind chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, trained on huge amounts of text to predict and generate language.
A way for apps and developers to use an AI model from their own code, usually paid per use (per token or per image).
An AI model that works through a problem step by step before answering, trading speed for accuracy on hard questions.
