Businesses often ask for "a chatbot" when they need an agent — or vice versa.
Chatbots
Answer questions and hold conversations. They may retrieve information, but mainly produce text for a person to read and act on.
Good for: FAQs, knowledge search, drafting, explanation.
Agents
Take actions using tools: updating records, booking appointments, processing refunds, running multi-step workflows.
Good for: repetitive processes with clear rules and available systems.
Decision Factors
- Does the task require actions in other systems? If yes, agent.
- How costly are mistakes? Agents need approvals and safeguards.
- Are systems accessible through APIs?
- Is the process well defined?
Start With Assistance
Many teams begin with an assistant that drafts actions for people to confirm, then automate steps as reliability is proven.
Governance
Agents need permissions, logging, testing and ownership similar to other production systems that change data.