AI 101

Agents (general)

Also known as: AI agent

Agents

An agent is an LLM wrapped in a loop that lets it act, observe the result, and continue — rather than answering once and stopping.

The core loop:

  1. Perceive — read the goal and the current state.
  2. Decide — choose the next action (often a tool call).
  3. Act — execute the action.
  4. Observe — read the result, then go to 1.

Chatbot vs. agent: a chatbot answers; an agent *pursues a goal across multiple steps*. The loop is the whole difference.