Not All AI Agents are Created Equal
There is a lot of hype in the AI conversation right now. Most of it is not helping Australian business owners make better decisions.
Many businesses I speak to think “AI Agent” is one category in an AI strategy.
From the outside, they can appear similar. They live on websites or inside business applications. But there are a number of different ‘levels’ of agents and understanding what they are and what you might need changes everything about your AI strategy.
Level 1 - Reactive Agents. They were everywhere around 2018-2020. They respond to a single prompt, they have no memory and no context (think basic chatbots or glorified FAQ that can answer single questions and breaks when the user goes off script)
Level 2 - Context aware agents. They retain conversation history and can personalise within a session (think a chatbot that remembers you the steps you have taken to try and fix a technical problem)
Level 3 - Tool using against. They call APIs, search the web, read documents and they can take action rather than just answer (think Qantas customer service agent).
Level 4 - Autonomous agents. They plan multi step tasks, self correct and operate with minimal input (think an AI powered recruitment agent)
Level 5 - Multi-agent systems. Networks of specialised agents collaborating, delegating and solving complex workflows end to end (think a financial analyst agent that reads accounts, models risk and flags anomalies)
Most organisations are at levels 1 or 2 and that's fine. But the gap between the foundational levels 1 and 2 and the agentic levels 3-5 will start widening fast.
The foundations you build today will determine how quickly and cleanly you can scale when you're ready.
AI Readiness - how ready are you?
If you are wondering where your organisation sits, check out the Advancer Hub to assess your readiness, and get a clear picture of your next step. hub.advancer.com.au