Source: Hard AI Author: Fang Jiayao

Tech giants are racing to bet on “AI agent” software with the intention of making this feature an essential tool for businesses to earn more revenue.

Imagine having a particularly clever smart assistant on your computer that can help you plan your vacation trips when you're busy at work, including booking flights and hotels. Isn't that a hassle?

AI proxy software is an efficient intelligent tool that automates tasks such as email management, travel scheduling, and even assisted programming. This allows people to focus more on other important matters at work.

Tech giants such as$Microsoft (MSFT.US)$, OpenAI, and Google are competing to develop their own version of the AI agent. Because if AI agents can actually help companies save time and money, then these tech giants can earn more revenue by selling AI agent technology.

Tech giants race to develop their own version of AI agents

Take Microsoft as an example. According to media reports, the company is developing an “AI agent” intelligent assistant, which can help sales staff automate the processing of orders and invoices. In the past, sales staff needed to complete multiple manual steps to process orders and issue invoices, but now, this smart assistant can automate these tasks. Specifically, if the system detects that a large order has not been processed, the intelligent assistant automatically creates an invoice and asks the salesperson whether to send it to the customer. Once an invoice is sent, the smart assistant will also track customer responses and payments, and automatically save this information into the company's system.

Additionally, Microsoft is improving the capabilities of these intelligent assistants to handle more complex tasks, such as writing and running code. GitHub Copilot is a tool provided by Microsoft for software developers. Developers simply describe their programming problems to this tool, and the intelligent assistant automatically provides solutions and even helps write and run new code.

According to reports, Microsoft plans to showcase some of the AI agent's features at the annual Build Developers Conference next month.

According to reports, companies such as OpenAI, Google, and Meta are currently competing to develop smarter, advanced computer assistants that can streamline workflows.

For example, OpenAI is secretly developing a computer-used agent that can simultaneously operate multiple applications, such as helping users transfer data from documents to spreadsheets. Additionally, OpenAI is partnering with Meta to develop AI agents that can handle more complex web tasks, such as automatically planning travel routes and booking hotels.

Meanwhile, Adept, a startup company, is developing computer-use agents. According to people with direct knowledge of Adept's plan, the company has raised more than 400 million US dollars and plans to launch the product in the summer. This AI assistant learns operations by watching videos of people working on computers, such as creating Excel tables, so it can perform tasks on the computer like a human, such as automatically searching online listings or recording customer calls.

Companies expect AI agent technology to bring about substantial changes

As the concept of AI agents becomes more popular, companies need to clearly define their functions to avoid customer confusion.

Originally, the term “AI agent” was used to describe an intelligent program that can perform tasks independently. However, as technology progressed, many companies began to use “AI agents” to describe various intelligent tools, and sometimes these tools are not as “smart” as initially anticipated.

For example, Google recently announced what it calls “AI agents”. Essentially, these are just different versions of the chatbot ChatGPT, which are mainly used in specific situations, such as customer service to help solve chat problems. However, these robots are not able to handle a variety of complex tasks autonomously like the original AI agents.

Currently, the term “AI agent” is being used so widely that people don't know exactly how many things an AI agent can do. If a company claims that their “AI agent” is powerful, but in reality this agent only works within a very narrow range, the user's high expectations often turn into disappointment.

Furthermore, companies expect AI agent technology to bring about substantial changes.$MongoDB (MDB.US)$CEO Dev Ittycheria also pointed out that although some AI functions have begun to be incorporated into apps such as email, these features have yet to fundamentally change his work life.

IttyCheria and his team are looking forward to more powerful AI capabilities, and they believe “AI agents” will be the next major breakthrough in AI technology.

edit/lambor