Artificial intelligence
AI agent
By Rubén García · 3 min
An AI system that takes a goal, plans the steps and executes actions in other tools with little supervision.
Unlike a chatbot, which only answers, an agent acts: it queries data, makes intermediate decisions and uses tools such as the CRM, email or ad platforms.
In marketing they're used to score leads, generate ad variants, run experiments or summarize results.
An agent combines three parts: a language model that reasons, a set of tools it can call (APIs, databases, a browser) and memory that keeps context between steps. The usual cycle is observe, plan, act and check the result before the next step.
Autonomy varies widely. Some agents only suggest actions a person approves; others run whole tasks. That's why risk-management frameworks recommend clear permission limits, logging every action and human oversight for sensitive decisions.
Gartner expects that by 2028, 15% of day-to-day work decisions will be made autonomously through agentic AI, up from virtually none in 2024.
