AI agents act autonomously on users' behalf to complete tasks, interact with other systems, make decisions, and perform actions like booking travel, reserving restaurants, and buying groceries. Major vendors and brands are adopting or piloting agent tools across e-commerce and travel. Marketers must evaluate agent purpose, construction, capabilities, limitations, and reputational risks before integration. Copilots collaborate without autonomous decision-making, while agents act independently. Large language models provide foundational capabilities such as text generation and translation but constitute only one component of complete agent systems.
Chatter about AI agents is suddenly everywhere - from Silicon Valley to the ski slopes of Davos - but just how will they impact Madison Avenue? Just yesterday, OpenAI previewed its new "Operator" AI agent tool to help users with web-based tasks like booking travel, making restaurant reservations and buying groceries. Early brand partners across e-commerce and travel include eBay, Etsy, Uber, Instacart, Reuters, AP, Priceline, Target and StubHub.
Despite so much use of the A-word, it's still early for AI agent adoption, meaning marketers should ask what agents are for, how they're made, what they do, what they might do - and what they can't do - including potential reputational risks. As tech titans build autonomous bots to tackle the mundane, marketing teams must weigh up how to integrate agents into their existing processes in order to better convert 'prospects' to paying customers.
Unlike chatbots, which are conversational, AI agents can take action on users' behalf. They can complete tasks, interact with other software systems, make decisions, and act independently. Companies building AI agents include Accenture, various advertising agencies and Talkdesk, which debuted new AI agents for retailers during NRF to help with personalization. Another example is Oracle, which just announced a new sales AI agent geared toward removing the admin-laden complexities of the sales process so its IRL team members can focus on
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