what is intelligent agent in ai

What is an intelligent agent in artificial intelligence?

Intelligent agent is a very important concept in artificial intelligence (AI), which is essential for every AI student to understand. People often ask the question – what is an intelligent agent in AI? Simply put, an intelligent agent is a system that perceives things in its environment and makes decisions or takes actions based on those observations. For example, your mobile voice assistant (like Siri or Google Assistant) is an intelligent agent.

An intelligent agent has two main components – Perception and Action. This means that it first gathers information from its environment, then makes decisions based on that information and performs an action. There can be many types of agents in AI – Simple reflex agent, Model-based agent, Goal-based agent, and Learning agent.

If you consider a real-life example, an autonomous car (self-driving car) is also an intelligent agent. It takes data from sensors around it, recognizes the road, traffic signals, etc., and makes driving decisions accordingly.

Agents play an important role in every field of AI – chatbots, search engines, games, robotics. Detailed information about Intelligent Agents is also available on Wikipedia.

Tip: Simple example of an intelligent agent

Simply put, when you ask Google Maps for directions, it understands your location and traffic data and suggests the best route – that's the true power of an intelligent agent!