Most AI agents are just chatbots with extra steps.

“AI agent” has become one of the most overused terms in tech right now.

A lot of what’s marketed as an agent is really just a chatbot with a slightly longer prompt chain; it answers, maybe calls one API, and stops there. That’s not autonomy. That’s a script wearing a new label.

A real agent does something fundamentally different: it reasons across multiple steps, makes decisions based on changing context, and takes actions across systems without a human clicking “next” at every stage.

A chatbot with extra steps needs a human checking its work. A genuine agent is built to operate inside a process end-to-end.

Before calling something an “agent,” it’s worth asking: does it decide, or does it just reply?