An agent is not a chat

With a chat, you ask a question and get an answer: you do the rest. An agent, on the other hand, receives a mission and acts to complete it. It opens pages, fills in a spreadsheet, sorts files, prepares a draft, then comes back to you when it's done or when it gets stuck.

How an agent works

• It plans: it breaks the mission into steps.
• It acts with tools: a browser, your email, a folder of files, a spreadsheet. These accesses are what set it apart from a simple chat.
• It observes and corrects: after each action, it looks at the result and decides what's next. This loop can last a few minutes or much longer.

Agents come in several forms: the "agent mode" of some consumer assistants, browsers that act on your behalf, assistants built into an email app or office software, agents specialised in code. The names change fast; the principle stays the same.

What you can happily hand over

• Multi-step, somewhat repetitive tasks: comparing five suppliers' prices in a table, renaming and sorting a hundred photos, picking out appointment dates from your emails.
• Tasks whose result you can check: a table, a list, a draft. If you can't judge the work, don't delegate it.
• Reversible tasks: a draft can be fixed, a copied file can be deleted.

What you keep for yourself

• Anything involving money: paying, ordering, subscribing.
• Anything irreversible: emailing a client, deleting data, publishing.
• Anything that needs your judgement or your relationships: answering a delicate complaint, choosing between two candidates.

Nothing stops the agent from preparing these actions: it fills the basket, drafts the reply. You're the one who presses the button.