Hey everyone!

So, we’re on a massive hiring spree for AI Engineers at the AI labs (HCLTech), globally. And as someone leading the AI Engineering team, I’m trying to really nail down what makes a great AI Engineer. But honestly? It feels like we’re all speaking different languages when it comes to one key concept: AI Agents.

Let me give you some background. I’ve been around the block. Years ago, I was deep into Java, building low-latency, high-performance cloud apps. Then, I dove into machine learning at Lloyds, training models for fraud and analytics. Now? We’re building AI and GenAI products and MVPs, pushing the boundaries.

Here’s the thing: ask a Software Engineer (SWE) what an agent is, and you might get something like, “Oh, just calling an LLM in a for loop.” Ask a Machine Learning Engineer (MLE), and they’ll probably give you a more formal definition about sensors and actuators.

But what about AI Engineers (AIEs)? That’s where it gets really interesting. I’ve been digging into this during interviews, and the range of answers is wild. I’ve literally recorded some of these, and here’s a taste:

AI Agent defintions - According to the people who I interviewed

  • “Autonomous goal-oriented systems, learning and adapting to achieve a goal.”
  • “LLM + memory + planning + tools + a while loop.”
  • “The more the LLM controls the application’s flow, the more ‘agentic’ it is.”
  • “Long-running processes that complete open-ended tasks.”
  • “Something trusted to make decisions for me.”
  • “Multi-step task completion, replacing human effort.”
  • “A controlling system for future states.” (Okay, that’s a bit sci-fi!)
  • And, yes, the classic: “LLM calls in a for loop.”
  • Plus, a bunch of specific examples like “coding agents” or “OpenAI Operators.”

AI Agent defintions - From the major frontier LLMs

  • From Gemini: “can process multimodal information like text, voice, video, audio, code, and more simultaneously; can converse, reason, learn, and make decisions” (I concur here)
  • From Grok: “An AI agent is a software program that uses artificial intelligence to perform tasks, make decisions, or interact with users and environments autonomously or semi-autonomously.”
  • From Claude: “An AI agent is a software system that uses artificial intelligence to perceive its environment, make decisions, and take actions to achieve specific goals with some degree of autonomy.”
  • From OpenAI (GPT 4o): “An AI agent is a software entity that perceives its environment, makes decisions based on its inputs, and takes actions to achieve specific goals or tasks autonomously.”

AI Agent defintions from our friends at X.com

  • AI agents are autonomous systems that analyze data & make decisions.
  • An AI agent is a software program that can interact with its environment, gather data, and use that data to achieve predetermined goals. AI agents can choose the best actions to perform to meet those goals.
  • An agent is a program that autonomously completes tasks or makes decisions based on data.
  • AI agents are autonomous programs that analyze data, learn from experiences, and perform tasks for users.
  • An AI agent is a system that can think, reason, plan, execute and evaluate tasks on its own.
  • AI agents perceive, decide, and act using LLMs, APIs, etc., autonomously executing tasks and learning.

Then, just when I thought I was getting a handle on things, OpenAI drops their definition: “An agent is an AI Application consistent of a model equipped with instructions that guide its behaviour, access to tools that extend the capabilities, encapsulated in a runtime with a dynamic lifecycle.” Or, simply: Model + Instructions + Tools + Runtime.

So, here’s my question to you: What’s YOUR definition of an AI Agent?

Seriously, I’m curious. With everyone from Microsoft and OpenAI to NVIDIA and Salesforce talking about agents as the next big thing for 2025, we need to get on the same page. (Though, let’s be real, they might have a vested interest in hyping it up to drive consumption!)

Let’s crowdsource this! What do you think? Drop your thoughts in the comments. Let’s figure this out together.

PS: In a future blog I will discuss on what skills I believe an AI Engineer should have.