What is an AI agent, and how is it different from a chatbot?
Almost every business tool released in the last two years calls something an AI agent, and most of them mean a chat box. The distinction is not marketing — it decides what you can hand over and what you still have to do yourself.
Perguntas e respostas
What actually makes something an agent rather than a chatbot?
A chatbot produces text and stops. An agent has a defined job, a set of tools it is allowed to use, and a finished thing it hands back — a drafted reply, a screened shortlist, a reconciled ledger. The test is simple: if the output still needs you to copy it somewhere and do the real work, it was a chatbot.
What is a tool, in this context?
Anything the agent can reach outside its own text: reading a document, searching the web, querying your inbox, writing a row. Each one is declared in the agent's definition, so you can see the whole list before you run it. An agent with no tools can only talk.
Does an agent do things without asking me?
Only if you let it. Every agent in the PROMIVO catalogue is read-only by default: it can look at things and produce a draft, and it cannot send, post, pay or delete. Actions that change something outside the agent are a separate permission you grant deliberately.
Is this the same as automation software I already have?
Not quite. Classic automation follows a fixed path — if this, then that — and breaks the moment the input is shaped differently. An agent handles the judgement in the middle: reading an unusual invoice, deciding which of eleven categories a ticket belongs to, noticing that a clause is missing. The rest of the pipeline is still ordinary automation, and should be.
Do I need to write prompts?
No. An agent here is a stored definition — instructions, tools, permissions, output shape, version — not a snippet you paste into a chat window. You give it the input it asks for and it runs. Writing your own is possible; needing to is not the point.
What can an agent not do?
Anything that needs accountability rather than output. It can draft the reply to an angry customer; it should not be the one who decides whether to refund them. It can screen a hundred CVs against your stated criteria; it cannot tell you whether your criteria are the right ones. Treat the output as a first draft from a fast, tireless, slightly literal colleague.