AI Chatbot Glossary
What Is AI Agent?
An AI agent is an autonomous software program that perceives its environment, makes decisions, and takes actions to achieve goals - going beyond simple chatbots by handling multi-step tasks.
Definition
An autonomous software program powered by artificial intelligence that can perceive its environment, make decisions, and take actions to achieve specific goals. AI agents go beyond simple chatbots by handling multi-step tasks, using tools, and adapting their behavior based on context.
Why AI Agent Matters for AI Chatbots
On a business website, an AI agent is what turns a passive FAQ bot into an employee-style assistant: it answers questions, captures leads, books appointments, escalates to humans when needed, and pushes data into your CRM - all from a single conversation. Chatonbo AI agents ship with RAG, tool use, and human handoff built in.
See it in practice:
See AI Agents in actionRelated Terms
AI Chatbot
An AI chatbot is a conversational interface powered by artificial intelligence that understands natural language, generates human-like responses, and assists users with tasks like answering questions, capturing leads, or processing orders.
Conversational AI
Conversational AI is a branch of AI focused on enabling machines to understand, process, and respond to human language in a natural, contextual way.
Intent Recognition
Intent recognition is the AI capability of identifying what a user wants to accomplish from their message - critical for routing conversations correctly.
Human Handoff
Human handoff is the process of transferring a chatbot conversation to a live agent when the bot cannot resolve an issue or the user requests human help - preserving conversation context.