Talking AI — Agents: when AI stops writing and starts acting

An AI agent doesn't just answer: it chains actions to reach a goal — look up information, fill in a form, trigger a task in your tools — with little human input. Powerful on a repetitive, well-defined process; risky on a fuzzy one.

The question to ask a vendor: “What happens when the agent gets it wrong — who sees it, who stops it, who fixes it?” The trap: handing it a task with no checkpoint and no way to cancel. A useful agent is one you can supervise and interrupt.

Source: documented concept; see Gartner, “agentic AI,” 2025.