The definition of agent is interpreted differently by different people

[EricGT]

@joyasree78

different people interpret agents differently

First off, the word agent as currently used with LLMs or chatbots is not a new term. The word agent has been around for some time with AI in general.

One of the classic books on AI “Artificial Intelligence : A Modern Approach” by Stuart J. Russell and Peter Norvig (WorldCat) gives

An agent is just something that acts (agent comes from the Latin agere, to do).

As such it is a very open definition.

However there are much more specific examples of agents noted in the book,

02_IntelligentAgents.pdf

A related post with some more information.

Agentic Discovery & Exploration with gpt-4o-mini

First off agents used with AI predate the modern notion of LLM agent. In my view of agents, which predates most of what is now being noted, is to just think of an agent as a subtask that uses AI to accomplish a specific task. In other words if a monolithic prompt does not work, try breaking the process into subtask using a different prompt(s). That is basically it. When I read your question it is like asking in more traditional programming for information on how to create a method or function.…