AI vocabulary
An agent acts. An automation repeats.
An automation with no AI in it gives you repeatable results. An agent might respond differently to the same prompt.
Agents
- Have permission to do things, not just say them: opens a file, runs it, checks the result
- Go through this quarter's invoices and flag anything odd
- Claude, Claude Code, Codex, or an AI assistant that does research or browses for you
Automations
- A fixed rule you set up once. Add an AI step and it starts deciding
- An invoice arrives, file it, email me