What is an

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What is an AI agent? AI agents are the tools we use to interact with AI. They can automate and perform complex tasks, such as natural language processing, that would normally require humans. March 2025 McKinsey Explainers An AI agent is a software component that has the agency to act on behalf of a user or a system to perform tasks. Users can organize agents into systems that can orchestrate complex workflows, coordinate activities among multiple agents, apply logic to thorny problems, and evaluate answers to user queries. If you’ve ever interacted with a customer service chatbot or asked a gen AI model to write you a sonnet, then you’re likely already familiar with a rudimentary version of AI agents. And if you’ve noticed improvements in gen AI’s performance since it went mainstream with ChatGPT, you’re not wrong. While versions of AI agents have existed for years, the natural-language-processing capabilities of today’s gen AI models have unleashed a host of new possibilities, which are enabling systems of agents to plan, collaborate, and complete tasks—and even learn to improve their own performance. As agents become more accurate, companies can increasingly use them to automate ...