What Are AI Agents? A Plain-English Guide to Your Future AI Employee | Touro GST

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A plain-English introduction to AI agents, explaining how autonomous, goal-driven AI systems work and why they are becoming the next generation of digital employees.

What Are "AI Agents"?
A Plain-English Guide to Your Future "AI Employee"

If you have used Large Language Modesl like ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, you have likely experienced the magic of Generative AI. You ask a question, and it gives you an answer. It is like having the world’s smartest encyclopedia at your fingertips. But we are currently witnessing a massive shift in how this technology works. We are moving from AI that just talks to AI that does.

Welcome to the era of AI Agents.

For students looking to enter the tech field, understanding this shift is not just interesting. It is essential for your future career.

From Chatbot to "Employee"

To understand what an agent is, let’s look at a simple analogy.

Imagine standard generative AI (like a basic LLM) is like a very smart library consultant. You can ask it for a summary of a book or to write a poem, and it will hand you a piece of paper with text on it. It is passive. It waits for you to prompt it, and its only output is text.

Now, imagine an AI Agent. An agent is more like a digital intern or a junior employee. You do not just ask it for information. You give it a goal.

For example, instead of asking "What are the flights to New York?", you might tell an AI Agent: "Book me the cheapest flight to New York for next Tuesday, add it to my calendar, and email the itinerary to my boss."

The agent does not just spit out text. It breaks that goal down into steps. It goes to a travel site. It searches. It compares prices. It accesses your calendar API. It drafts an email. It executes actions in the digital world to achieve the outcome you requested.

How Do They Work?

At their core, AI agents operate on a loop that looks something like this: Perceive, Think, Act.

Perceive: The agent looks at the task you gave it and the tools it has available (like access to the web, a calculator, or a database).

Think: It uses a Large Language Model (the "brain") to plan. It asks itself, "To book a flight, what do I need to do first?"

Act: It performs the first step.

Loop: It looks at the result of that action and decides what to do next until the job is done.

This autonomy is what makes them feel like "employees" rather than just software tools. You provide the destination, and the agent figures out the route.

Why This Matters for Your Career

The tech industry is rapidly pivoting to building these agentic workflows. Companies do not just want chatbots that answer customer support questions. They want agents that can process refunds, update shipping records, and handle complex logistics without human intervention.

As a future technologist, you will not just be "using" these agents. You will be managing them, and more importantly, you will be building them.

Mastering the Future at Touro GST

This is exactly where the Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence Systems at Touro University’s Graduate School of Technology shines. We are not just teaching students to write simple prompts. We are preparing you to engineer the systems of tomorrow.

Our program dives deep into the architecture that makes these agents possible. In courses covering Intelligent Systems and AI System Design, you learn how to connect language models to external tools and databases. You explore concepts like Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), which allows AI to access real-time data rather than relying on old training sets.

Furthermore, with our strong focus on hands-on learning, you get to build projects that simulate these real-world scenarios. You might work on designing a system that can analyze financial data and autonomously generate reports, or an intelligent assistant that can navigate complex medical records.

TLDR - The Bottom Line

The future of software is not just about code that follows rigid rules. It is about creating software that can reason, plan, and act. By joining the MS in Artificial Intelligence Systems at Touro, you place yourself at the forefront of this revolution.

The AI "employees" of the future are coming. The question is, will you be the one hiring them, or the one building them?