What are AI agents and assistants and what do they do?

How do AI agents work?

AI agents are often mistakenly associated with humanoid robots, but in reality they are simply a type of software. They can be seen as an evolution of the classical automation of business processes, but in a much more advanced form. In this context, an AI agent is a developer-designed and coded workflow, which is a type of application that uses artificial intelligence trained to handle a specific business process. It does not operate completely freely - its decisions are limited to the area and data to which we consciously give it access, so it remains autonomous and performs interactions only within the limits set by us.

Unlike traditional automation, which operates on rigidly programmed rules, an AI agent can make autonomous decisions based on data, use advanced prompts created for it, and react dynamically to changing conditions. In addition, thanks to the use of large language models (LLM) and natural language processing, the AI agent can understand the content of a conversation almost like a human, analyzing not only the words, but also the intentions and context of the utterance — learn more about capabilities of AI agents.

Below you will find a comparison illustrating the differences between creating AI systems and classic workflow automation:

While AI-powered automation systems mean adding elements of artificial intelligence to an existing process, the AI agent largely relies on AI as the main mechanism of action. What does an AI agent do? For example, such an assistant can automatically generate and send a summary of the meeting or supplement the product offer template after the end of the conversation with the customer. In addition, based on the analysis of the tone of voice or the content of the conversation, the AI can assess the level of interest of the customer and assign an appropriate score in the CRM to determine the percentage chance of converting a lead. So an agent can not only act faster than a human, but can also draw conclusions and make decisions autonomously. This makes an AI agent more than a typical automat—properly prepared, it can act as your virtual collaborator who actually “understands” business processes and actively supports them.

What types of AI agents do we use?

AI agents are systems that vary in their scope of competence and level of autonomy. They can support employees in repetitive activities or completely take over the implementation of certain business processes. Here are the most important types of AI agents encountered in practice:

1. Supportive agents — work in the background, automating repetitive tasks and facilitating human work.
2. Autonomous agents — search for information and make decisions on their own, adapting to changing conditions in the environment.
3. Conversational agents — conduct multi-threaded dialogues through natural language processing (NLP), supporting customer service or sales.
4. Analytical agents — analyze data from multiple tools and generate recommendations in real time to facilitate business management.
5. Hybrid agents — combine automation rules with generative AI, adapting flexibly to different scenarios.
6. Learning agents — systems that improve their performance based on the input they receive — the more data the greater the efficiency.
7. Goal-Based agents — systems that independently plan and execute actions based on a defined end goal, adapting their steps in real time.

As you already know, AI agents become part of the business — they offer a number of enhancements that you can use in your business. They relieve users (i.e., in the case of enterprises - employees), who no longer have to spend tens or even hundreds of hours performing repetitive tasks. In addition, AI agents can operate and “work” without human intervention. On the other hand, many of our customers, when implementing AI systems, ask for the ability to easily supervise their operation. This is not a problem at all - despite the dynamic development of technology, monitoring the work of agents and periodic verification of the results are used in most processes. This allows you to maintain high quality and compliance with business goals. So, as an automation agency, we create semi-controlled solutions in which a human has insight into the actions of an AI agent and approves key decisions - this approach still significantly allows our clients' companies to accelerate the execution of everyday tasks.

Examples of using AI agents in business processes - see what you can implement

AI agents are increasingly being used in many areas of business, supporting automation and streamlining day-to-day operations across multiple tools. Thanks to the flexible architecture, applications of this type can be easily adapted to the specifics of different processes and industries. Additionally, using APIs (application programming interfaces), we can access application data and connect AI systems with other platforms or tools that you use in your business on a daily basis. Thanks to this, AI agents offer tremendous automation capabilities. Below you will find 4 examples of AI agents divided into areas:

AI assistants in sales

In modern companies, AI agents streamline the work of sales teams. They can analyze sales history, market trends and customer preferences, so they can personalize offers and increase the chance of closing deals. Such systems learn from data, even if we “feed” them historical information from many years — this makes the analysis of statistics broad and really makes a difference in decision making. AI models can also monitor the sales funnel, remind sales team members of tasks and deadlines. As we mentioned earlier, it is also possible to automatically score leads, which is an assessment of the quality of potential customers, which will help marketers focus on those most valuable sales opportunities.

AI agents in customer service (chatbots and more)

What is the AI agent function in the customer service area? Creating AI agents is not just about deploying AI chatbots on websites. Such machine learning systems can also automatically reply to emails, analyze customer sentiment, suggest products in e-commerce and take over many other, even advanced functions. In B2B companies, AI agents act as the first line of lead handling, automatically qualifying queries or answering basic questions from potential customers, and in more difficult cases, passing the matter to the seller, along with the full context of the conversation. Don't hesitate and use AI agents in customer service to make your business more responsive!

AI Agents for HR and Recruitment

In HR and recruitment departments, autonomous AI agents act as digital recruiter assistants. They can analyze hundreds of resumes in seconds, comparing them with the requirements of the position and creating lists of the best suited candidates. In addition, they conduct initial interviews in the form of chatbots, checking the basic competencies and availability of the candidate (the so-called screening of candidates), which allows users of ATS systems to save a lot of time in the first stages of recruitment. Once new employees are hired, AI agents can support their onboarding by answering frequently asked questions, reminding them of formalities, and guiding them through the next steps of implementation.

Office Assistants

AI agents in office work are increasingly becoming invaluable support in everyday administrative duties. They can act as virtual office assistants, such as scheduling meetings, managing calendars, booking conference rooms or monitoring important event dates. They also facilitate the work with documents by generating summaries of meetings, preparing reports or sending reminders to participants. AI agents are revolutionizing office work, but it is important to remember that they are properly implemented and tailored to the specific requirements of enterprises. With the right use of AI systems, employees in the company can focus on more strategic tasks, such as striving to achieve their sales goals.

Potential problems and challenges of AI agents

Risk of data leakage
AI agents often process sensitive information, which raises data security concerns among our customers. The solution may be to run the system on your own server or to use information anonymization techniques to reduce the risk of exposing sensitive data.

Misinterpretations of queries and actions
AI agents make decisions based on input that is not always unambiguous. In practice, this implies the risk of misinterpretation of the user's intentions, which can lead to serious business consequences. As we mentioned earlier, to solve such problems, we create AI systems in which the final decision is approved by a human — acting as the last control instance.

Poor quality or errors in the input
The data that the AI agent works on may be incomplete or contain errors, leading to incorrect results. A good solution is to perform a data audit by specialists, e.g. agencies dealing with automation and artificial intelligence (we can also perform such an audit for your company).

Difficulties integrating with existing systems
Despite the fact that AI-based automation is already widely used in business, we must bear in mind that its integration with other components, databases and APIs can be complicated. The challenge of code and system compatibility requires careful planning and testing before implementation. An AI agent is a computer program — so leave its implementation to specialists who deal with it on a daily basis.

More about the problems and challenges that may arise when using automation with the use of AI, we describe in our article The most common mistakes in AI automations.

In conclusion, how to choose the right AI agent?

After reading the article, you already know what an AI agent does. Remember: such a system is not just a passive automation algorithm, but it has the ability to make dynamic, active decisions (for example, in the selection of the right products). AI agents are becoming indispensable in modern enterprises and are the next step in development automation with the use of artificial intelligence.

If you are wondering how to choose the right AI agent for your business, you need to keep in mind that although there are many ready-made solutions on the market, they will not always fully adapt to the specific processes and needs of your organization. Moreover, using ready-made software, you transfer your data to third-party providers, which poses risks related to the security and protection of confidential information. Therefore, the best solution is often to create your own AI agent, designed from the ground up for your business requirements. Only then can you be 100% sure that the data is properly protected, and the system itself perfectly maps your processes. It is also worth working with an agency with experience in cybersecurity to help design a secure and scalable implementation of an AI agent in your organization.