AI Agents
AI agents are systems that use AI to plan steps, use tools, make decisions, or take actions toward a goal with varying levels of autonomy. The term is often used broadly, so leaders should ask exactly what the agent can do, what tools it can access, and when humans approve actions.
AI agents go beyond answering questions like a chatbot or providing suggestions. They plan steps, use tools, and take actions inside real systems on behalf of a goal. That might mean drafting and sending a follow-up, opening a ticket, checking a contract, or triggering a downstream workflow, depending on what access the agent has been given.
For executives, the decision isn't really whether to use agents, but how much autonomy to grant and under what controls. The business value is real, but so is the exposure: an agent with the wrong permissions or no clear escalation path can take consequential actions faster than anyone can catch them. Leaders who define boundaries, approval gates, and accountability before deployment are in a fundamentally different position than those who figure it out after something goes wrong.
Read next
Related concepts
AI Assistants
AI embedded in your work tools — not to chat, but to actually get things done.
Business StrategyAutomation
Technology taking over repetitive work — and making whatever process it replaces go much, much faster.
Governance and RiskHuman-in-the-Loop
A person intentionally placed in the AI workflow — and the reason 'a human reviews it' can mean very different things.
Optional map
Concept neighborhood
Focused neighborhood
AI Agents
AI agents are systems that use AI to plan steps, use tools, make decisions, or take actions toward a goal with varying levels of autonomy. The term is often used broadly, so leaders should ask exactly what the agent can do, what tools it can access, and when humans approve actions.
In these paths
Selected concept
Directly related
One step further
via AI Assistants
via Automation
via Human-in-the-Loop
via AI Risk Management