I presented this slide for the first time last week at NVIDIA HQ (see my photos on Linkedin), speaking about how AI agents are reshaping business, society, and our lives.
But this wasn’t created in a vacuum. I’ve been refining this working definition over time, gathering expert input and real-world examples to bring clarity to a topic that’s evolving rapidly.
The Working Definition:
AI Agents are autonomous software systems that perceive their environment, make decisions, and take actions to achieve specific goals, often with the ability to learn and adapt over time.
Basic Attributes:
- Access and add to memory
- Self-determine a plan of action
- Verification and permissions
- Complete sophisticated actions
- Self-improvement and learning
Examples in Action:
- Home: Plan, order, and pay for delivery or cooked meals.
- Comms: Organize emails, messages, and even respond.
- Work: Gather, analyze, and present data for reports (imagine end-of-month tasks automated).
- Physical: Fully autonomous self-driving cars (e.g., Waymo).
The Advanced Mode: Orchestration:
When agents recruit, manage, and coordinate the actions of other agents. This is where things get even more interesting, unlocking networked intelligence for greater outcomes.
This definition is from a Collaborative Effort:
- I’ve been fortunate to receive feedback from expert AI builders like Parth Patil, Anna Yuan, Catherine Kurt, Karpagam Narayanan, Jiquan Ngiam, Mikhil Raja, and Sarah Allali.
- I’ve learned directly from the leaders we’ve invested in at Blitzscaling Ventures, like MultiOn (consumer agents), CrewAI (enterprise agents), and Skyfire (agent payments).
- And of course, I’ve hosted dozens of agent startups at Llama Lounge (see archives), where I’ve seen some of the most cutting-edge live demos.
Below: Photos from the amazing new Nvidia campus, the twin buildings are aptly named Voyager and Endeavor after the Star Trek series I grew up with. Next to me is Parth Patil, the second speaker, he’s a very talented AI agent developer and hacker, we were joined by his brother.
