I think Anthropic's definition makes the most sense.

- Workflows are systems where LLMs and tools are orchestrated through predefined code paths. (imo this is what most people are referring to as "agents")

- Agents, on the other hand, are systems where LLMs dynamically direct their own processes and tool usage, maintaining control over how they accomplish tasks.

https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/building-effective-age...

The problem with this definition is that modern workflow systems are not through predefined code paths, they do dynamically direct their own processes and tool usage.

> they do dynamically direct their own processes and tool usage how are they dynamic? if there is a code written for it then they are not dynamic.

If they are driven by LLMs interpretation then there is no explicit code written and it's figured out at runtime

First rule of writing definitions: use everyday English.

True! Meant heuristic

Agents are just regular LLM chat bots that are prompted to parse user input into instructions about what functions to call in your back-end, with what data, etc. Basically it's a way to take random user input and turn it into pseudo-logic you can write code against.

As an example, I can provide a system prompt that mentions a function like get_weather() being available to call. Then, I can pass whatever my user's prompt text is and the LLM will determine what code I need to call on the back-end.

So if a user types "What is the weather in Nashville?" the LLM would infer that the user is asking about weather and reply to me with a string like "call function get_weather with location Nashville" or if you prompted it, some JSON like { function_to_call: 'get_weather', location: 'Nashville' }. From there, I'd just call that function with any the data I asked the LLM to provide.

That sounds like L1 in this article (there are six) https://www.vellum.ai/blog/levels-of-agentic-behavior

Relative to that scale, L2 is how I've come to understand it. It's kind of soft-sold as L3 but that will require quite a bit of work on the vendor side (e.g., implementing an AWS Lambda style setup for authoring functions the LLM can call).

an agent is software that does something on behalf of someone (aka software)

I personally strongly prefer the term "bots" for what most of these frameworks call "agents"

Stick to the agentic nomenclature if you want at least a magnitude increase in valuation.

Even more off topic, does "heutiger" mean something in English that I'm unaware of? Google tells me it's just German for 'today' or 'current'.

Never heard that word either!

I see from the other comment it's just a typo haha. It all makes sense now!

There is already a definition in agent oriented programning. It has something to do with own sensors of environment and react autonomously. I find that definition fits agentic AI too. My rudimentary interpretation is anything with its own inner (event) loop.

So it’s just a program?

a program can be unixy: taking inputs and producing output, and does not listen and react to any event. It can also be an UI program that are "event-driven" but all events are from user actions, hence no autonomy.