Not a sci-fi character, a workflow that chains steps.
An agent is not a sci-fi character and it is not one giant model. It is a piece of code that takes a defined task, breaks it into steps, and lets you act on software through language. The core idea is chaining: instead of asking a model to “improve revenue,” you break the goal into step one, step two, step three, exactly the way a manager hands work to a junior employee. Tools like LangChain popularized this. So an agent is less a breakthrough model than a workflow that combines models, tools, and sometimes plain deterministic code, each doing one step.
— The Edge: “AI Agents: The Future of Work?” · Podcast