Stephanie Arnett/MIT Technology Review | Getty MIT Technology Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here.

When ChatGPT was first released, everyone in AI was talking about the new generation of AI assistants. But over the past year, that excitement has turned to a new target: AI agents.

Agents featured prominently in Google’s annual I/O conference in May, when the company unveiled its new AI agent called Astra , which allows users to interact with it using audio and video. OpenAI’s new GPT-4o model has also been called an AI agent.

And it’s not just hype, although there is definitely some of that too. Tech companies are plowing vast sums into creating AI agents, and their research efforts could usher in the kind of useful AI we have been dreaming about for decades. Many experts, including Sam Altman , say they are the next big thing.

But what are they? And how can we use them? How are they defined?

It is still early days for research into AI agents, and the field does not have a definitive definition for them. But simply, they are AI models and algorithms that can autonomously make decisions in a dynamic world, says Jim Fan, a senior research scientist at NVIDIA who leads the company’s AI agents initiative.

The grand vision for AI agents is a system that can execute a vast range of tasks, much like a human assistant can. In the future, it could help you book your vacation, but it will also remember if you prefer swanky hotels, so it will only suggest hotels that have four stars or more, then go ahead and book the one you pick from the range of options it offers you. It will then also suggest flights that work best with your calendar, and plan the itinerary for your trip based on your preferences. It could make a list of things to pack based on that plan and the weather forecast. It might even send your itinerary to […]

What are AI agents?