An AI agent is an app that facilitates scheduling and automation of tasks for AI models to complete. AI agents differ from AI chat bots because they can be left unattended to process several prompts over an extended period.
This has proven to be useful for those who have large or complex workloads that have to be or can be broken up into separate tasks. AI agents change the way in which people use existing AI models.
AI agents can be used with the AI models that you already have access to — whether they are running offline on your computer, or are cloud-based like ChatGPT and Claude.
The first AI agent to gain widespread popularity was OpenClaw. OpenClaw is an open source app that can connect to several different AI models and help you to schedule tasks for later execution.
Shortly after OpenClaw gained popularity and started the era of agentic AI, it was acquired by OpenAI. Today, there are more options on the market, including Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, and Cursor.
Cursor is a proprietary agent that is compatible with several AI models. Claude Code is for use with Anthropic’s AI models, and Codex is for OpenAI’s models.
While AI agents are powerful tools — with great power comes responsibility. AI agents need to be sandboxed and used in test environments only to prevent damage to production software.
Software engineers are still needed to review the output of AI coding agents, as AI models hallucinate and frequently generate bugs.
Also note that if using an AI agent, you should ask it to follow a coding style you are familiar with so that you don’t have to waste as much time figuring out how its code works.
You can access OpenClaw from your PC, phone or tablet. This is useful because you can monitor the progress of your tasks or make changes while you’re away.
Key Tips For Using AI Agents
- Sandbox the agent to protect the rest of your system and prevent it from doing or sending anything outside your machine.
- Frequently back up your data to physical storage mediums such as hard drives to prevent data loss.
- Carefully plan your prompts and read them again before sending them to the agent. Every failed prompting attempt costs you precious tokens.