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hubie [soylentnews.org] writes:

No one can seem to agree on what an AI agent is [techcrunch.com]:

Silicon Valley is bullish on AI agents. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said agents will "join the workforce" this year [axios.com]. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella predicted that agents will replace certain knowledge work [yahoo.com]. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said that Salesforce's goal is to be "the number one provider of digital labor in the world [seekingalpha.com]" via the company's various "agentic" services.

But no one can seem to agree on what an AI agent is, exactly.

In the last few years, the tech industry has boldly proclaimed that AI "agents" — the latest buzzword — are going to change everything. In the same way that AI chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT [techcrunch.com] gave us new ways to surface information, agents will fundamentally change how we approach work, claim CEOs like Altman and Nadella.

That may be true. But it also depends on how one defines "agents," which is no easy task. Much like other AI-related jargon (e.g. "multimodal," "AGI," and "AI" itself), the terms "agent" and "agentic" are becoming diluted to the point of meaninglessness.

That threatens to leave OpenAI, Microsoft, Salesforce, Amazon, Google, and the countless other companies building entire product lineups around agents in an awkward place. An agent from Amazon isn't the same as an agent from Google or any other vendor, and that's leading to confusion — and customer frustration.

[...] So why the chaos?

Well, agents — like AI — are a nebulous thing, and they're constantly evolving. OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity have just started shipping what they consider to be their first agents — OpenAI's Operator [techcrunch.com], Google's Project Mariner [techcrunch.com], and Perplexity's shopping agent [techcrunch.com] — and their capabilities are all over the map.

Rich Villars, GVP of worldwide research at IDC, noted that tech companies "have a long history" of not rigidly adhering to technical definitions.

"They care more about what they are trying to accomplish" on a technical level, Villars told TechCrunch, "especially in fast-evolving markets."

But marketing is also to blame in large part, according to Andrew Ng, the founder of AI learning platform DeepLearning.ai.

"The concepts of AI 'agents' and 'agentic' workflows used to have a technical meaning," Ng said in a recent interview, "but about a year ago, marketers and a few big companies got a hold of them."

[...] "Without a standardized definition, at least within an organization, it becomes challenging to benchmark performance and ensure consistent outcomes," Rowan said. "This can result in varied interpretations of what AI agents should deliver, potentially complicating project goals and results. Ultimately, while the flexibility can drive creative solutions, a more standardized understanding would help enterprises better navigate the AI agent landscape and maximize their investments."

Unfortunately, if the unraveling of the term "AI" is any indication, it seems unlikely the industry will coalesce around one definition of "agent" anytime soon — if ever.

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