Globant Enterprise AI offers multiple AI solutions, including Assistants and Agents. This article outlines the main differences between the two.
An Assistant is a software that performs various tasks in a maner similar to a human assistant. Its primary function is to assist, collaborate, and facilitate tasks.
You can interact with an Assistant using natural language to:
- Process and understand voice, image, video, and text.
- Consult, adjust and visualize relational database information using natural language through Chat with Data Assistant.
- Execute on-demand actions such as interacting with external services through the API Assistant.
- Generate answers from documents through the RAG Assistant. For example, you can upload a PDF report and ask for a summary of its main findings. The Assistant reads the file and provides you with a summary.
An Agent is a system that acts independently to achieve goals and complete tasks on behalf of a consumer or another system, such as:
- Other Agents
- Corporate applications (CRMs, ERPs)
- Other platforms (Slack, Jira, Teams, WhatsApp)
It usually plays an active or decisive role, and can operate with authority or autonomy.
You can interact with an Agent using natural language to delegate tasks involving:
- Acting based on an expected result that involves multiple workflows. For example, you can request the Agent to fully develop an application using the appropriate instructions and required files.
- Solving complex problems with minimal human intervention. For example, an Agent receives a customer complaint about an incorrect invoice. It automatically analyzes the billing history, detects the error in the collections system, corrects the amount, updates the database, generates a credit note, and sends a notification to the customer. It only escalates the case if it finds multiple complaints of the same type.
- Collaborating with other Agents that have different skills in order to increase the complexity of the problems that can be solved.
- Executing and creating. For example, you can configure the Agent to automatically monitor a folder where new PDFs are saved. Every time a new report arrives, the Agent extracts the key points and sends you a summary via email—without your intervention. The Agent works in the background, automating the process and proactively notifying you.
Thus, Agents are designed to address scenarios that involve a higher level of complexity than those managed by Assistants.
Choosing between Agents and Assistants depends on the desired results.
Use Assistants when you need to:
- Provide a real-time, natural language conversational experience focused on a specific function.
- Answer questions
- Perform tasks based on your explicit instructions.
Choose Agents when the tasks involve:
- Complex decisions that require both what to do and how to do it.
- Goals that must be achieved without human intervention.
- Evaluating context and dynamically determining next steps.
- Selecting the proper Tools according to the specific scenario.
- Coordinating multiple actions and adapting to fast-moving, changing scenarios.