AI Agents: Revolutionizing Artificial Intelligence
In this article, we will delve deep into the world of AI agents, exploring their foundations, their architecture, and the various building blocks that compose them. We will also look at how they can be integrated into different fields, the benefits they bring, and why these technologies are attracting growing interest in businesses and among the general public.
Series of articles on AI
Here is the first article in a four-part series:
- LLMs: understanding what they are and how they work (current article).
- NLP: an exploration of natural language processing.
- AI Agents: a look at autonomous artificial intelligences.
- Comparison and positioning of AI Smarttalk: a summary and perspective.
Introduction
In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has gained increasing popularity, fueled notably by the democratization of powerful natural language processing (NLP) models and large language models (LLMs). Nowadays, these technologies go beyond mere text generation or auto-completion: they give rise to more complex, more autonomous systems capable of acting and interacting on behalf of the user. These systems—commonly referred to as AI agents—are designed to handle all sorts of tasks, from simply answering frequent questions to managing an entire complex process.
But what do we really mean by AI agent? What are the technological components that make it up? How does an AI agent manage to understand requests, reason, and make decisions? To answer these questions, we will first define what an AI agent is and then look into how its perception and decision engines interact. We will also examine the key role played by knowledge retrieval (or Knowledge Base) and the usefulness of calling upon tools (the Tool Call) to carry out specific actions. Finally, we will see how memory helps maintain context and improve the relevance of interactions over time.
What Is an AI Agent?
An AI agent is a software program capable of making decisions and performing actions (or, more simply, providing answers) in an autonomous manner, relying on artificial intelligence methods. The agent is generally designed to converse with a user (via text or voice) and to carry out specific tasks by using external resources, knowledge bases, or various tools.
These agents rely on natural language processing (NLP) to understand requests and to communicate clearly. But if we limit ourselves to traditional NLP approaches, we quickly run into constraints: a conventional chatbot has a restricted vocabulary and a relatively rigid behavior. That is why large language models (LLMs) have emerged, capable of comprehending and generating text in a much more nuanced, almost “human” way.
To accomplish their missions, AI agents often incorporate various complementary modules. One handles perception (or language understanding), another handles decision (or planning actions), and there are also modules for knowledge retrieval and memory. Add to that the ability to call upon external tools, and you get systems that can genuinely “act” autonomously in a given environment.
A Modular Architecture
To explain the operational principle of an AI agent, we can visualize the flow of information as follows:
- Message (User’s request): The (human) user formulates a request or question.
- Perception Engine: The perception engine analyzes the sentence, identifies the intent, context, and key elements.
- Decision Engine: The decision engine plans the necessary steps, potentially searches for additional information, calls upon tools if needed, and prepares a response or action.
- Knowledge Base: A module for searching a site’s or a company’s knowledge base, or in an enriched chatbot (RAG, indexes, documents, etc.).
- Tool Call: Calls on an external tool to solve a problem, send an email, query an API, etc.
- Memory: The conversation’s history, user preferences, results from previous actions, etc.
- Message: The final answer sent back to the user.
Each block thus has its role to play and can be implemented separately. This modularity is crucial, as it allows for the independent improvement or replacement of each component in order to adapt to technological developments and the specific needs of each company or project.
The Perception Engine: Understanding Human Language
The first essential building block for an AI agent is its ability to understand what the user expresses. This is the role of the perception engine. Where a traditional chatbot might have relied on a decision tree (with fixed keywords), a current perception engine is often based on an LLM or on advanced NLP algorithms.
How Does It Work?
- Semantic analysis: The engine identifies the overall structure and meaning of the sentence.
- Entity extraction: It extracts key elements (dates, locations, product names, etc.).
- Intent detection: It attempts to discern the purpose of the request (e.g., “place an order,” “ask for help,” “get information,” etc.).
Thanks to LLMs, these steps are becoming more and more accurate, even in complex use cases or when the user does not express themselves very clearly. Additionally, some perception engines are referred to as multimodal: they can handle not only text but also images, videos, or even audio files.
The Perception Engine’s Limits
Despite considerable advances, language understanding is never perfect. Current models can be misled by ambiguous phrasing or tricked by unusual contexts. That is why a good AI agent should be able to verify its understanding by asking clarification questions or by turning to knowledge bases to bolster its initial interpretation.
The Decision Engine: Orchestrating the Response and Actions
Once the request has been understood, someone has to decide what to do. This is the role of the Decision Engine. You can think of it as a conductor who receives the score (the user’s request, already processed by the Perception Engine) and must then:
- Break the task down into simpler steps (often referred to as “chain-of-thought” in AI terminology).
- Determine whether additional information needs to be obtained from databases, documents, FAQs, etc.
- Decide whether a tool (API, external service, hardware action, etc.) needs to be called to accomplish the request.
- Assemble the final answer or outcome (plan the sequence of steps, formulate the response, etc.).
The Decision Engine often relies on a LLM as well (or a dedicated logic engine) for more refined reasoning. It is not uncommon to see hybrid systems: one LLM for language understanding, another LLM for planning and logic, possibly coupled with coded business rules.
Example: If a customer sends a message: “I’d like to change my order number 12345; how do I do that?”, the Decision Engine processes this information as a request to modify an order. It will then:
- Check whether an order management tool is available,
- Figure out the steps needed to retrieve the order,
- Verify the order’s status (already shipped or not),
- Generate a personalized response,
- Possibly launch the modification process via the relevant API.
Hence, the Decision Engine acts as an operational brain, ensuring consistency between the detected intentions and the actual tasks performed, using the appropriate components.
Knowledge Base: Searching for Information
Central to many AI agents is the capacity to look up external knowledge. This functionality is often crucial because, although an LLM may have memorized enormous amounts of information, it may sometimes lack precision or not have the latest version of an internal database.
The Knowledge Base can take various forms:
- Searching a document base (e.g., a collection of PDFs, manuals, FAQs, internal documents).
- Searching a vector-based index (often called RAG—Retrieval Augmented Generation), where you look within semantic embeddings for the most relevant passage to answer the query.
- Searching via a conventional search engine (Google, Bing, etc. API).
- Consulting internal databases (CRM, ERP, etc.).
In the example of an AI agent for order management, the Knowledge Base might simply involve querying the internal system to find order #12345 and check its status (paid, pending, shipped, etc.).
The advantage of this module is to avoid providing incomplete or inaccurate answers solely based on the LLM’s “general knowledge.” You thus move towards documented reasoning, where the agent (internally) justifies its response with reliable and up-to-date sources.