What is an AI agent, and how is it different from a chatbot?
A chatbot answers questions. An AI agent takes actions: it reads and changes things in your tools, like sending an email or updating a CRM record, to finish a task you gave it.
What does an AI agent actually do?
An agent gets a goal, breaks it into steps, and uses connected tools to carry them out. For example: find deals with no reply, draft a follow-up for each, and log it in the CRM.
How is that different from a chatbot?
| Chatbot | AI agent | |
|---|---|---|
| Gives you | An answer | Finished work |
| Touches your tools | No | Yes, with access you grant |
| Needs approval rules | Rarely | Yes, for anything that changes data |
What should you check before using one?
Three things: what it is allowed to do, who approves risky actions, and whether every action is recorded with its cost.
In MFDIO, Dio shows the plan and its cost first, waits for a person before anything changes, and ends every run with a Receipt.
See how it works →Questions people also ask
It can, but for anything that changes data or reaches customers, a person should approve first.
They take over repeated steps. People still decide what matters and approve the result.