Introduction to AI Agents

Relax. We'll talk through this in plain words — no textbook voice.

What you'll walk away with

Understand Introduction to AI Agents without any of the intimidation
Get hands-on practice trying it yourself
Learn to spot — and smile past — the easy-to-make mistakes

Learn how chatbots differ from AI agents, and the agent architecture that involves a goal, a loop, tools, and guardrails.

Let's think about it this way for a second

A chatbot answers a question and stops there. An agent, on the other hand, keeps working toward a goal — deciding what to do next, calling tools, checking the results, and continuing on. But more freedom also means more ways for things to go wrong.

Introduction to AI Agents lesson illustration — Agents, Privacy, and Project — Introduction to AI Agents

Let's connect this to everyday life

A good place to start is a bounded agent with a handful of tools, like checking a calendar, searching a database, or drafting a report. For actions like making payments, deleting things, or sending something to another person, require user approval.

Goal and success condition
Allowed tools
Maximum steps and timeout
Approval for sensitive actions
Logs and evaluation

Let's try it hands-on together

text

Goal → Decide next action → Call tool → Observe result
  ↑                                      ↓
  └──────── Continue or stop ← Check success

You should see

You'll be able to design the parts of a safe, bounded AI agent.

5-minute try-it

For a study-planner agent, write out the goal, three tools, things it must never do, actions that need approval, and a stop condition.

A quick word of caution

Don't treat AI output as the final word. Have a human review anything important — including code and user data — before it's actually used.

OpenAI Agents SDK — OpenAI

Easy traps

Assuming a good prompt alone makes an agent safe
Not setting a maximum number of steps

Exercise

For a study-planner agent, write out the goal, three tools, things it must never do, actions that need approval, and a stop condition.

You'll know it worked when: You'll be able to design the parts of a safe, bounded AI agent.