What is AI Agent?

An AI agent is a software system that perceives inputs from its environment, reasons about what action to take, and then executes that action — often without human intervention at each step. Unlike simple automation scripts that follow fixed rules, AI agents use large language models (LLMs) to make context-aware decisions.

AI agents can browse the web, read files, send emails, query databases, call APIs, and interact with other software — all in service of completing a task. A single agent might handle a multi-step workflow that previously required a human sitting at a computer.

In practice, a well-designed AI agent for a procurement team might read an incoming RFP document, extract the technical specifications, compare them against a vendor catalogue, flag discrepancies, and draft a comparison report — all without a human touching it.