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Many artificial intelligence experts and prognosticators agree that one of the biggest trends in the space this year is AI agents, which are different than a generative AI model such as Claude or ChatGPT. AI Agents are also different from custom GPTs. Here’s a quick breakdown of their respective differences.
- Generative AI: Focuses on creating content—text, images, or code—based on user inputs.
- Custom GPTs: Are tailored versions of generative AI fine-tuned for specific industries or needs.
- AI Agents: Operate more autonomously. For example, a personal finance agent doesn’t just analyze spending habits; it might set up budgets, make recommendations or even transfer funds based on predefined goals.
Ash Stearn is the founder of Ash Stearn AI consultancy where she builds AI agents for clients and trains others how to do that as well. Using a travel analogy she explained during a Zoom call that an AI agent would be similar to a personal tour guide on a trip.
Easy Explanation Of An AI Agent
“The AI agent—or tour guide in this example—would be able to answer unexpected questions. It could change the travel route depending on the weather. It could even be able to book flights or ground transportation for the people within the tour group,” she said.
“It’s definitely able to work autonomously. It’s quite proactive and it can multitask with several things at once. While a custom GPT would be more like an excellent travel guide book of the area you’re visiting. While someone could do a fine job of vacation planning using the travel book—or custom GPT—it lacks the capabilities to make decisions or take actions for the individual,” Stearn added.
She rounded out the analogy stating that a generative AI model would be most akin to a general information booth at the airport. While the booth worker may have a lot of general information about the area, it will take a lot of questions and time to hone in on the specific details the fictitious traveller needs for the trip.
AI Agents For Business
From a business perspective, Stearn says AI agents are only as useful as the training they are programmed with as well as the quality of the data and resource inputs. Basically, AI agents need to be trained like employees—they require structure, documentation, and a clear set of instructions.
“If you don’t give them proper training data and clear frameworks, they won’t perform well. It’s no different than onboarding a new team member—you wouldn’t just throw them into the job without guidance,” she noted.
Roberto Luna, is the founder and CEO of Lunivate, a leading AI automation and solutions firm that specializes in building AI agents. His company states on its website that individual clients that work with his company save three hours a day in productivity gains and an average of $80,000 per month in cost savings due to AI agents and automations.
Luna said during a Zoom call that voice agents are the number one area for growth this year—so much so, that they will eventually make call centers obsolete.
“Imagine if you call a business and the agent could just send a text, write an email, set up tasks—all these things one agent can do right now. If you think about that communication agent, the one you’re talking to, that one is considered the router agent because all it’s doing is gathering information and sending it to everybody else,” Luna explained.
He added that organizations not using AI agents to streamline operations are leaving money on the table and falling behind competitors who are.
“This is a very simple equation—the more you automate, the more you scale. The more you scale, the more you dominate. And if you’re not doing it, someone else is, and they will outpace you in the market,” he added.
Investing In AI Agents—Placing Bets On The Future
Seema Amble is a partner at venture capital firm a16z—aka Andreessen Horowitz—where she focuses on early stages investing in the future of B2B software, fintech and AI globally. She’s a board member or observer for several startups including: Yuno, Inventa, Wrapbook, Stoik, Clutch, and Valon—to name a few.
With an AI investment war chest that exceeds $1 billion as of April 2024, Amble explains that AI agents are breaking out this year due to a shift from simple retrieval of information to actual reasoning and autonomous decision-making.
“We’re going from the ability of just doing retrieval of information into more reasoning, and I think there’s still a lot of work that has to be done on the reasoning side. And there’s still a lot of opportunity on the retrieval side, being able to search across a broader context set,” she said during a Zoom call.
Amble added that AI-driven automation in industries like freight, finance and insurance is creating efficiency leaps that weren’t possible before.
“For example, we’ve seen major efficiency boosts in freight because of AI agents, where tasks that used to take hours now take minutes. And this is just the beginning. Instead of just replacing manual work, AI is now helping companies build better data sets and make more intelligent business decisions automatically,” she noted.
AI Investment Is Set To More Than Double By 2028
Investments in AI don’t appear to be slowing down. Research firm IDC estimates worldwide spending on technology to enable AI strategies will reach $337 billion in 2025—and double to more than $749 billion by 2028.
Despite the AI investment frenzy, Amble says enterprise adoption of AI still requires companies to meet information security and data compliance standards, just like any other software.
“Things haven’t changed in that regard—companies still need to go through security reviews, and they still need to think about data privacy and compliance before rolling out AI tools.”
AI Agents Won’t Take Jobs, Someone Using Them Could
Stearn has an optimistic view that AI agents won’t be replacing jobs anytime soon—they’re enhancing human capabilities and eliminating soul-crushing tasks.
“I used to do content repurposing manually—rewriting captions, generating hashtags, formatting posts. It was exhausting. AI took over that for me, freeing up my time for more strategic work. That’s the real value,” she said.
Luna said that workers must adapt and learn how to use AI and AI agents because AI by itself isn’t the threat—people who know how to use AI are.
“That’s the reality—someone who knows how to use AI is always going to be more productive than someone who doesn’t. So it’s not about AI taking your job, it’s about someone using AI taking your job. And if you’re not paying attention, that’s exactly what’s going to happen,” he noted.
Amble said whether it affects jobs or not, having an AI strategy is no longer just an advantage—it’s an existential necessity for companies that want to remain competitive.
“This isn’t just about efficiency—it’s about survival. If you don’t have an AI strategy, your competitors will, and they’ll move faster, smarter and cheaper than you,” she concluded.