What is an AI Agent?

What are AI agents?

AI agents operate in a unique manner, functioning independently with the ability to think and act on their own. All you need to do is provide them with a goal, whether it's researching competitors or ordering a pizza. They will generate a task list and commence their work, relying on feedback from the environment and their own internal thought process.

The AI agents possess the capability to prompt themselves, constantly evolving and adapting to achieve their objective in the most efficient manner possible. Furthermore, these AI agents are proficient in utilizing computers. They can browse the internet, utilize applications, read and write files, conduct transactions with your credit card, and even exert control over your laptop while doing so.

This advancement signifies another stride towards achieving AGI (artificial general intelligence). We are steadily approaching the point where machines can perform a wide range of tasks, just as humans can, across any subject or field of expertise, demonstrating complete adaptability and superior performance.

How does an AI agent work?

When you provide your objective, the AI agent initiates the goal initialization process. It passes your prompt to the core LLM, such as GPT-3.5 or GPT-4, and then returns the initial output of its internal thought process, indicating its understanding of the task at hand. The next stage involves creating a task list.

Based on the desired goal, the agent generates a set of tasks and determines the optimal order in which to complete them. Once it deems that it has a feasible plan, it begins searching for relevant information. As the AI agent can utilize a computer just like you, it accesses information from the internet.

Some agents can also connect with other AI models to offload tasks and decision-making, enabling them to access features like image generation, geographical data processing, or computer vision capabilities. All data is managed and stored by the agent, serving both to relay information back to you and to enhance its strategy as it progresses.

Throughout the completion of tasks, the agent continually assesses its distance from the goal by obtaining feedback from external sources and its own internal thought process. Until the objective is achieved, the agent iterates, generating more tasks, gathering additional information and feedback, and persistently advancing towards the goal.

These steps outline the general process followed by conventional AI agents to accomplish various objectives. However, the specific organization of these steps may vary depending on how developers configure their agents. Furthermore, this description pertains to agents used on computers or software platforms, as there exist other types of AI agents that we will explore later.

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