What Are Autonomous AI Agents and Which Vendors Offer Them?

By 2025, predictions point to the rise of autonomous Artificial Intelligence agents capable of independent decision-making, but ensuring reliability, security, and ethical alignment remains a critical challenge.

Autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) agents are intelligent systems that can perform tasks for a user or system without human intervention. They’re a specific type of intelligent agent characterized by their ability to operate independently, make decisions and take actions without requiring ongoing human guidance.

A normal software agent is a goal-oriented program that reacts to its environment in limited autonomous ways to perform a function for an end user or other program. Intelligent agents are typically more advanced, can perceive their environment, process data and make decisions with some level of adaptability. Autonomous Artificial Intelligence agents, by comparison, are designed to operate independently with a higher level of adaptability to enable them to make more complex decisions with little to no human influence.

Agents can typically activate and run themselves without input from human users. They can also be used to initiate or monitor other programs and applications. Autonomous AI agents typically use large language models (LLMs) and external sources like websites or databases. They can also continuously improve using self-learning techniques. Autonomous agents can operate in dynamic environments, making them ideal for complex tasks like enterprise customer service.

Agent-based computing and modeling have existed for decades, but with recent innovations in generative AI, researchers, vendors and hobbyists are building more autonomous AI agents. While these efforts are still in their early stages, the long-term goal is to enhance efficiency, streamline workflows and advance processes. For example, autonomous Artificial Intelligence agents could be used in tandem with robotic process automation (RPA) bots to execute simple tasks and eventually collaborate on whole processes.[…]