What Is an AI Agent?

a16z Podcast

a16z

Science, Innovation, Business, Entrepreneurship, Culture, Disruption, Software Eating The World, Technology

4.4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 22 May 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What exactly is an AI agent — and does anyone actually agree? In this episode, taken from of AI + a16z, General Partner Guido Appenzeller and partners Matt Bornstein and Yoko Li break down one of the most hyped- and most hotly debated 0 concepts in AI right now: agents. Are agents just clever wrappers around LLMs? Tools that can reason and act? Or simply a fresh label for familiar tech? Whether you're building, investing, or just trying to make sense of the buzz, this episode is for you.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today, we're discussing one of the busiest and most confusing terms in AI right now, agents.
0:09.0	Are they just fancy wrappers around LLMs, full-blown autonomous workers, or something in between?
0:16.0	A16Z Info Partners, Guido Appenzeller, Matt Bornstein, and Yoko Lee break down the technical
0:21.7	definitions, pricing models, use cases, and why the term agent means so many different things
0:27.6	to different people. If you're building, buying, or just curious about what agents are and aren't,
0:33.2	this episode is for you. Let's get into it.
0:40.9	As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes only.
0:45.7	Should not be taken as legal business, tax, or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any
0:50.2	A16Z fund.
0:51.8	Please note that A16Z and its affiliates may also maintain investments in the companies
0:55.4	discussed in this podcast.
0:57.0	For more details, including a link to our investments, please see A16Z.com forward slash
1:02.9	disclosures.
1:08.1	So I think there's some things which are probably kind of easy to say,
1:12.3	which is a, there's a good amount of disagreement.
1:14.5	What is an agent?
1:15.0	We've heard a lot of different definitions of it, both on the technical side as well,
1:20.8	I'd say on the marketing and sales side in some cases, because there's some sales models
1:25.4	associated with it.
1:27.4	So let's start with the technical side. I think there's some sales models associated with it. So let's start with
1:28.5	a technical side. I think there's sort of continuum here. You know, the simplest thing that I've
1:34.3	heard being called an agent is basically just a clever prompt on top of some kind of knowledge
	...

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