Agents Are the New Chatbots

if 2024 was the year of chatbots, 2025 is the year of agents.

everywhere i look: agent frameworks, agent startups, agent capabilities. the paradigm is shifting.

what's an agent anyway

the handwavy definition: an AI that doesn't just respond, but acts. takes actions. uses tools. pursues goals over multiple steps.

chatbot: you ask, it answers. agent: you describe a goal, it figures out how to achieve it.

claude computer use: controls a desktop, navigates apps, completes multi-step tasks
claude code: writes, executes, and debugs code in your environment
various coding agents: devin, cursor, etc. all doing agentic things
research agents: autonomously search, read, synthesize
automation agents: handle workflows, file management, scheduling

the common thread: autonomy and tool use.

the models got good enough that agents actually work. or work well enough.

a year ago, LLM agents were demos that broke on the second step. now they're products people actually use.

capabilities + infrastructure + demand = agent era.

agents are powerful but fragile. when they work, it's magic. when they fail, it's confusing.

reliability: agents make mistakes. they get stuck. they misunderstand.

trust: how much do you let an agent do unsupervised? the stakes matter.

debugging: when an agent fails, tracing what went wrong is hard.

safety: autonomous systems with real-world effects need guardrails.

alignment science work feeds into safe agentic systems. better safety techniques = safer agents.

so in a sense, i'm part of the agent revolution, just focused on keeping it safe.

bullish on the technology. cautious about deployment.

agents that handle low-stakes tasks well: great. agents that handle high-stakes tasks without supervision: concerning.

the path is: start constrained, expand carefully, build trust.

more capable agents. more integrations. more questions about control and oversight.

2025 will be remembered as the year agents went mainstream. where it goes from here... we'll see.

asked an agent to draft this blog post. didn't use it. some things i still want to do myself.