AI Agents: What Is and Isn’t an Agent
Everyone is trying to sell you an “AI agent” right now. Most of them aren’t agents.
In this session, Philip Mudhir will show you what an AI agent really is, what’s just a chatbot or an automation with a new label, and how to tell the difference before you spend money on one.
The goal is simple: be able to look at any “agent” and know what it really is, and whether your business needs one at all.
Philip will walk through the difference between a prompt, an automation and an agent, show the same task done all three ways, and cover where agents are useful today and where they still fall over.
⚡ What You’ll Learn
🤖 What an agent actually is: A plain definition you can explain to someone else in one sentence
🧩 Prompt vs automation vs agent: The three levels, and what each one is good for
🚩 Spot the fake agents: The questions to ask any vendor who says their product is “agentic”
💸 Know when you don’t need one: When a simple automation is cheaper, faster and more reliable
⚠️ Where agents go wrong: Mistakes, running costs, and the access you hand over
🛡️ Keep a human in charge: Where to put approval steps so an agent can’t do damage
🎯 Live Outcome
This isn’t about building an army of agents.
You’ll take one real task from your business and work out whether it needs a prompt, an automation or an agent.
By the end of the session, you’ll be able to cut through the agent hype and make a clear call on what to build, what to buy and what to ignore.