What's the significance of AI agents?
Last week, my article revolved around the Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents, being digital assistants and/or helpers that go beyond just responding to user inputs and prompts where they actually act proactively and not reactively to user/your requests. This week, I want to elaborate on what significance do these AI agents have on us? Truth be told, as a senior professional, one can be overwhelmed and loaded too, not just with information as an overload (from news outlets, social media, work, family, etc) yet with personal and professional actions and commitment too (from checking various emails, meetings, projects, and a huge to-do-list that continues to grow periodically)
I know some might say that there are productivity tools and apps that might help and be a solution to help manage time and tasks, yet the proof is in the pudding on the number of hours that may be needed which is not enough to be honest and practical. A probable solution is therefore my last article on utilizing AI agents, for they would (as soon as they mature) assist you 24/7 (365 days) on virtually all your tasks, even while you're asleep or is on vacation.
What's the significance of these AI agents though? In a nutshell, having someone smart and knowledgeable available next to you, round the clock, to assist you. What more? Quicker, cheaper (in price and not in quality), multitasker, and are very responsive. This may not be practical to have as a human being, let aside the bomb (in terms of cost) you would need to pay if such a service is available, for you may require more-than one person or resource to get such activities done (just incase an organization tries to mimic such a need today).
Humans have emotions, humans need time to rest and humans cannot normally handle more-than one task at a time with superior quality. Yet smart machines and robots can (only with limitations as it stands today) AI agents save lots of time.
Think of all the repetitive tasks it can do for you every day, from replying to emails, reviewing and summarizing your readings/reports, organizing your digital calendar and many more. All these time-consuming tasks can be freed up for you to focus on other activities that only you can do best (or don't necessarily need assistance with). AI agents learn and can adapt quite fast, thanks to the large language models (LLMs) which I will try and write about in the coming articles. But briefly, LLMs get smart every day by learning from a context, applying some logic and/or sometimes also get creative.
As a pratical example, see how generative AI apps like ChatGPT and Gemini works (they all depend on LLMs). Lastly, AI agents biggest significance, as I had mentioned earlier, is that they work while you are asleep. They don't take break, don't ask for leave, and certainly are not moody (as they don't have emotions as humans do). This is a big bonus of working with AI agents.
To conclude, AI agents would be able to think, plan and act on your behalf. What you just need to do is to give them a goal (such as 'Find me a restaurant here in Muscat that serves Mandi Rice, and is at a place near the beach, and book for me at 12 p.m. next Saturday the 14th June').
The AI agent will find out the steps, look for the information, and get you the results so as perform the necessary booking for you. AI agents will surely redefine what's possible by making life management much easier and faster; something I personally need to keep abreast. Until we catch up again next week, stay positive and tuned.
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