What's an agent?
A chatbot talks back. An agent is the same kind of AI given a goal, a few tools, and room to take steps and do the task — draft the weekly update, sort the inbox by what needs a reply. You set it up once; what it's allowed to do stays yours.
From chatting to doing
A chatbot answers and stops. An agent is the same kind of AI, given a goal and the freedom to take steps toward it — read your inbox, find the messages that need a reply, set them aside. It acts, where a chatbot only talks.
A clear, reusable ask
An agent is really just a clear, reusable ask. You set it up once — what you want, how, and with which tools (searching, fetching, sending) — and it works in a loop: take a step, check the result, take the next, until it's done. Save it, and the same ask runs again next week. The weekly-update draft comes out the same way each time.
Who decides what it can do?
An agent has no will of its own — it works on the goal you gave it, with the tools you allowed, and nothing more. Don't hand it the keys to your email and it can't send any. What it's allowed to do is a setting you hold, not something it decides. You can see exactly where that line sits when you build one yourself.
What makes an agent different from a chatbot?
A chatbot answers and waits; an agent is the same kind of AI given a goal, some tools, and the freedom to take steps and do the task. It still only does what you've allowed — it has no goals of its own.