Agents and agentic workflows are the latest buzzwords in the generative AI ecosystem. But like any emerging technology, the terminology and definition of agents is diverse and often confusing for developers. To help demystify agents, in this article we offer a comprehensive resource for developers who are already familiar with the fundamentals of large language models and prompt engineering. We will help you dissect every aspect of the anatomy of an agent and map it to the technical implementation. In followup posts, we will apply these concepts to some of the popular agentic frameworks, such as AutoGen and CrewAI. A note on agentic frameworks: while these can help you get started, they are often abstract and hide the core concepts from developers. The most effective way to learn AI agents is to design and build them from the ground up. So in this post, we will compare and contrast an AI agent with a traditional agent role — such as in a contact center. By doing this, you will be able to conceptualize and understand how closely AI agents mimic their human counterparts. The best way to think about an AI agent is as a digital twin of an employee with a clear role. When any individual takes up a new job, there is a well-defined contract that establishes the essential elements — such as job definition, success metrics, reporting hierarchy, access to organizational information, and whether the role includes managing other people. These aspects ensure that the employee is most effective in their job and contributes to the overall success of an organization. An AI agent is, technically speaking, no different from an employee. Like its human counterpart, there is a set of key attributes that are essential for an agent to function effectively. Behind the scenes, these attributes are implemented as technology stacks, leveraging the emerging building blocks of generative AI — such as system prompts, prompt design techniques, vector databases, tools, and more.

Complete guide : How AI Agents works and how you can use agentic AI for your enterprise.