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Definition

AI Agent

An autonomous software system that uses a large language model to perceive its environment, make decisions, and take actions to achieve specified goals.

In Depth

AI agents go beyond simple chatbots by maintaining state, using tools, and executing multi-step plans. Unlike a single LLM call that produces one response, an agent loops — observing results, reasoning about next steps, and acting until its goal is achieved. Agents can browse the web, write code, call APIs, query databases, and interact with other agents. The key distinction is autonomy: an agent decides what to do next based on its observations, rather than following a fixed script.

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