AI ‘Agents’ Aren’t Matching Up to the Buzzwords
These tools aren’t gods or even humans, so stop with the useless comparisons.
No AI agent: Senju Kannon at the National Treasure Hall in Nara, Japan.
Source: Kyodo/Getty
The biggest issue with the term artificial intelligence “agent” is that everyone seems to have a different definition for what it means.
Most often, it’s used to describe an AI system that can act autonomously and work with outside applications to complete increasingly complicated tasks. The buzziest example from Asia has been Manus, which went mega-viral earlier this year. But it’s also morphed into a marketing buzzword, slapped onto everything from products that surf the web on their own to bots that will eventually achieve human decision-making skills — and could be coming for your job. In China, where reports of a new agentic tool seem to emerge every week, some firms have been accused of labeling their products AI agents just to capitalize on the hype.