AI comparison
Chatbot vs AI agent
A chatbot replies to each message in a conversation; an agent works towards a goal over many steps, choosing and calling tools, often with no message in between.
| Aspect | Chatbot | Agent |
|---|---|---|
| Unit of work | One reply per message | A task over many steps |
| Tools | None or a few | Central to how it works |
| Who drives | The user, turn by turn | The model, within limits |
| Main risks | Wrong or off-topic answers | Wrong actions, runaway loops and cost |
Choose Chatbot when
- People want to ask questions and get answers
- Each reply can be read before anything happens
- You want a small, predictable feature
Choose Agent when
- The job needs several actions in a row
- The steps depend on results along the way
- You can sandbox its tools and cap its steps
Learn it hands-on
These free lessons teach it with commands to run in a lab and checked tasks. Read them whole with no account.
Related terms
- AI agent
- An AI agent is a program in which a language model chooses its own next step, calling tools in a loop until the task is done or it is stopped.
- System prompt
- A system prompt is the standing instruction sent before the conversation that sets a model's role, tone and rules for every reply in a chat.
- Tool calling
- Tool calling lets a language model ask your program to run a named function with arguments, such as a search or a lookup, and then use the result.