What Makes an AI Agent Different from a Chatbot?

An AI agent differs fundamentally from a traditional chatbot in both architecture and intent; while chatbots are primarily designed for conversational interaction, AI agents are built to perceive, decide, and act autonomously within an environment. A chatbot typically follows predefined conversational flows or leverages large language models to generate responses based on input text; however, it remains largely reactive, responding only when prompted. In contrast, an AI agent operates with a goa