Ep.1 - Agents are hard to define

_{Audio above is AI-generated, duh.
withAgents isn’t business focused. It’s also not for the technical AI community - though welcome. It’s for everyday people who want to personally keep up with this fast changing space and wield that knowledge to their advantage. The insights are casual and the use-cases straightforward. Glad you’re here.}

An insight
It’s not just you. Most of us are confused about Agents.

“AI” is the tech, “Agentic” (or “Agents”) is a way to distinguish solutions built natively on that tech. Said another way, “Systems that use AI to get something done.”

That’s my way of seeing it. Simple enough, right? Not quite.

Agents are so hot right now. It’s why you’re reading this, it’s why I’m writing this, and it’s why Google News and Twitter are booming with 2025 Predictions centered on this coming AI Agent takeover. The /r/AI_Agents subreddit grew by 100% this month and this newsletter is — I’m certain — one of hundreds now launching. So be it.

But if you’re trying to wrap your head around Agents, it’s worth knowing that the jury is still out on what exactly Agents are, and the hype storm coming into 2025 is fueling that fire. We’ve had definitions for agentic systems for years (the common thermostat is a frequently mentioned type of agent, even) but as we try to make sense of AI applications and describe a new boom, “Agent” as a name has gotten kind of fuzzy.

Some will say that agents are fully autonomous self-driven and reasoning systems that can use tools, chain LLM calls (which they’ll decide on their own to do!) and remember and optimize their own behavior over time. Others will say that LLM enabled workflows with some degree of automation (which is also hard to define!) count.

Most agree that single-prompts to Chat-GPT wouldn’t count…
but what about when it uses tools (like simple web search) and reasoning?

I like this point of view. Think of AI Agents (and AI Agenticness) as a spectrum of complexity. Here’s a sketch-up I did this weekend.

Our Arguments

It’s telling that in forums, Discord servers and group chats around the AI space right now, “What the heck is an agent?” is a common debate. Don’t let the nuances slow you down — just start adopting.

With Agents, you can…
“Get weekly executive reports from your own team of trend researchers”

Maybe you’ve experienced this moment too. There’s a new hot topic you’re interested in (ahem), you crack open your laptop, hit your preferred source of info and start opening tabs. A few, tens, countless. Pretty soon your browser is crumbling under the weight and you exit out — defeated.

Alright maybe this dramatic version is just me … but I’m sure you have your own version of that story.

With Agents, you can create a simple automation to do a lot of the research lifting and reporting for you. A Reddit agent that sends trend reports your way on a periodic basis is one approach. Check the video below to see my 5 minute walkthrough.

Steps if interested in doing this:

1. With a free Gumloop account (I’m unaffiliated and there are other platforms like this too — I’ll write up that roundup soon)

2. Find the “Subreddit AI Analysis” template under “Media & News” in Templates

3. Launch and be sure to hit the “clone” button in the top-right of the pipeline page (the canvas screen after launching the template, with the draggable nodes all connected to eachother)

4. Explore the template and customize - definitely update the Subreddit of choice in the first node (which is called “Reddit Scraper”) and your email address later in the pipeline.

5. Look through the other nodes and familiarize — this is how you learn.

6. Hit “Run” once everything is configured.

7. You can add a “Time Trigger” node under “Triggers” in the add node (the plus button on the left) menu. This is how you can make this run on a regular basis for you, after setting up.

Takes 2 minutes, works like a charm.

Sound smart
Three shareable things

• Google’s “New Agents Whitepaper” is making news. It’s not news.
  The Google Whitepaper on Agents that seems to have been released in the last few days (based on the number of posts we’re seeing about it) is actually from September. Just look at the footer. We scanned through it and honestly, it’s nothing new. Forgive Google, the world’s changed a lot since September (as has Google’s AI!). You can read it here. Our take is that this is at once overly jargony to be meaningful to a newcomer, and too high-level to have much impact on the Agent space now.
  
  Why you should care: Not all “big news” is big news in this frothy space rn.
  
  

• Researchers now proposing “Agents are Not Enough”
  This paper (great title) outlines a simple ecosystem of supporting services/solutions that we might also need to really get the hype-otheized value of AI Agents. It’s pretty easy to skim. From AI Researchers at Microsoft and U Washington.
  
  Extra credit: This paper investigates just how much of a hypothetical company’s work can be outsourced to agents today (24%), based on some guesswork around current capabilities.
  
  Why you should care: For more complex Agentic AI systems with high autonomy focused on complex tasks, there’s a good argument for thinking in terms of an ecosystem — not just the Agent.
  
  

• Crypto people may take over the “Agent” word
  Right now, there is a LOT of talk about AI Agents for Crypto. We won’t spend too much time here, but think “Agenting fund managers managing crypto funds that people can invest into, for a fixed period of time”. Billions of $$$ are already flowing in this nascent space. Tons of grift too. Curious? More here. 
  
  Why you should care: In the context of crypto, ‘Agents’ have specific meaning. Don’t get too distracted by this.

Share these insights, or share the whole thing.

One request

This is the first ever newsletter for WithAgents. It’s a passion project of mine and a perfect way to focus my digging-into-the-space as we kick off 2025.

Like you (I imagine) I wouldn’t call myself an AI-community member or researcher.

I’m a young dad and career man in Austin Texas. In my day-time, I work alongside high-talent teams to develop and launch services and accelerators in the tech services space. I’ve recently joined a fantastic company called Wizeline to do just that.

Outside of that work, I like to share my ideas and build things that scratch my own itch — enter WithAgents.ai.

WithAgents was born from my own confusion with the Agentic AI hype-cycle, complex definitions and struggles actually adopting them into my own workflow without having to become an AI expert. So I decided to build this newsletter. I’ll learn, and share as I learn. Hopefully doing-so in a way that is digestible to the non-AI-geek.

I hope you’ll follow along and please share in your socials if you find value.
It’ll help this keep moving.

Thank you.

CG