What is an AI agent?
An AI agent is a piece of software that works toward a goal you set, instead of waiting for the next prompt. It looks at what just happened (an email arrived, a form was filled, a row appeared in a sheet), picks what to do next, then does it. It keeps going until the task is finished or it hits a checkpoint you set.
What is an AI agent?
A chatbot answers one question and stops. An AI agent keeps working. Give it a goal like "reply to new sales leads in my inbox," and it reads each new email, drafts a response, updates the lead in HubSpot or Salesforce, and waits for the next one. The agent decides what to do at each step, not a fixed recipe you wrote in advance.
How an agent runs
Every agent runs the same loop: see what changed, decide a next move, do it, check the result. Lindy frames this as five steps (perceive, reason, act, learn, monitor). The agent keeps going until it hits the goal, runs out of work, or asks you to confirm.
Where agents go wrong
Three failures repeat. The agent picks the wrong tool when two have similar names and files an invoice in the wrong folder. It loops on the same lead and sends three follow-ups in an hour. Or an upstream connection breaks (Gmail token expires, webhook stops firing) and the agent stalls quietly. Confirmation checkpoints on destructive actions plus a run-cap catch most of this.
For execs
One agent can absorb work that needed a coordinator: lead qualification, inbox triage, CRM hygiene. Cycle time drops from hours to minutes, and the headcount math changes.
Last updated: May 20, 2026