Q >> You’ve talked about various aspects of AI, but there’s a new concept that seems to be gaining lots of buzz: What’s an AI agent? Why would I want one, and what kind of things could it do to improve my life?

A >> Let’s start with your last question, because it’s something that everyone should consider when evaluating any technology: Will it improve your life? Indeed, it’s a good question to ask before any purchase you’re poised to complete. This is particularly true with generative artificial intelligence, because GenAI either requires you to purchase high-end devices (read expensive) or share your data with the AI companies, forfeiting your privacy.

Chat? Let’s be more proactive!

The current model for GenAI is text messaging, and it’s a splendid approach, because most everyone is familiar with texting friends and family. This approach does have its limitations, however, because it’s always passively waiting for you to initiate an interaction.

If you’re asking questions, doing homework, researching travel plans or similar, a completely reactive utility might be fine (like Google search). But what if you want the AI system to proactively do things on your behalf?

That’s the promise of AI agents. Think of agents as smart and highly focused assistants. If you’re a corporate bigwig, you might already tell your VA to “keep an eye on tickets to NYC and grab one when the price goes down” and “let me know any time the server goes down, including its impact on our global services.”

For the rest of us, imagine asking a smart AI-powered app to do the same tasks and let it keep a digital eye on things. Who doesn’t want to be a VIP with “your people” doing all the tedious tasks every day?

As the world of AI has evolved at a shockingly quick pace, so has the experience of using these tools improved at a commensurate rate. AI apps from ChatGPT to Perplexity, Firefly to Claude, are all much improved and easier to use than even six months ago.

Now imagine AI Agents that can not only act as another layer of user-friendly system interaction but can also hide the lower-level complexity. In chat systems, you’re often asked to “pick an LLM” or a “custom GPT,” but a well-designed agent will automatically figure out which other tools and systems are required for the task and hook them all up behind the scenes.

This gets us a step closer to the promise of artificial intelligence: To simplify our lives so that we can focus on the creative work instead of the tedious, repetitive tasks that too often consume many hours of each day.

Implemented well, these AI agents will improve all our lives. Now, let’s see how they evolve…

— Dave Taylor has been involved with the online world since the beginning of the Internet. He runs the popular AskDaveTaylor.com tech Q&A site and invites you to subscribe to his weekly email newsletter at AskDaveTaylor.com/subscribe/ You can also find his entertaining gadget reviews on YouTube at YouTube.com/AskDaveTaylor.