No unified definition for an AI “agent” is leading to customer frustration, as Microsoft, OpenAI, Salesforce, Amazon, Google, and others market it differently
Data Science: 2010-2016 — Machine Learning: 2017-2022 — AI: 2022-2024 — AI Agent: 2025- [embedded post] @neuroemergent : Beep Boop. “You agentic Bro?” — “I agent Bro.” [embedded post] Paul Rietschka / @prietschka : I don't think I've ever seen a more clearly-artificial public relations campaign around a technology that is simultaneously, (1) non-functional, and (2) unwanted. — It's been bizarre watching major cos. try to hype these things, esp. considering there are no clear use cases being targeted. Rumman Chowdhury / @ruchowdh : 🖐️ I call AI Agents “3 APIs in a trench coat” — techcrunch.com/2025/03/14/n... Mastodon: Alex Jimenez / @AlexJimenez@mas.to : In the last few years, the tech industry has boldly proclaimed that #AI “agents” are going to change everything. However, no one seems to agree what an AI Agent might be. — https://techcrunch.com/... #AgenticAI #DigitalTransformation @counternotions@mastodon.social : Senior director of product at Google and an ex-GitHub Copilot leader: “I think that our industry overuses the term ‘agent’ to the point where it is almost nonsensical.” — (Not nonsensical if you define it as “a field Apple's hopelessly fallen behind.") — https://techcrunch.com/... LinkedIn: Yam Marcovitz : The term “agentic”, coming from someone who's been pushing LLMs to their limits in the past couple of years... is soon to be completely outside the realm of engineers and engineering. … Matthias Patzak : So what? — We are still discussing what a microservice is... Or what is DevOps? — 9 out of 10 applicants talk about Kubernetes when I ask them about DevOps. … Eros Marcello : Me in 2015: — So, if these Conversational AI platforms say it learns with use, why are we hand labeling + explicitly programming what these systems say for each specific variation of user input? … Richard Platt : Silicon Valley is bullish on AI agents. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said agents will “join the workforce” in 2025. … Ashok Govindaraju : One company's AI agent books appointments. Another's can supposedly run entire business functions. The reality? … Forums: r/technology : No one knows what the hell an AI agent is Misk To / Beehaw : No one knows what the hell an AI agent is