Back to blog
What are AI agents?
AI agents are your virtual helpers. Digital employees designed to perform specific tasks within an Agentic AI framework. Sounds difficult, but it's much easier than you think. Let's explain. Agentic AI refers to artificial intelligence that can autonomously perform tasks, make decisions, and learn from experiences without constant human intervention. Within an agentic AI platform, one can create AI agents. These AI agents act as virtual team members, capable of handling complex tasks. What type of tasks? Pretty much anything you can think of; such as analysing data, writing emails, automating cancel or renewal processes, creating tickets, and much more
How to create AI agents?
Building AI agents is designed to be intuitive, even for those without technical expertise. How? By just prompting or 'telling' it what to do, where to get information and how to act in normal language - like you would in a person-to-person conversation. Like hiring a new employee and explaining the tasks at hand in their new job!
Step 1: Name your agent
Every new job starts with a function title and description. Start by giving your AI agent a name, and tell it what you want it to do. Like this:
Agent name: Product recommender
You're our product recommendation agent. Your job is to provide customers with a smooth shopping experience by recommending items that align with their preferences.
Step 2: Describe their role and responsibilities
Now let's define how your new employee is going to do its task(s), by telling it what it should do in plain language, as if you were instructing a person.
You will recommend products to customers when they ask for help during their shopping, or you will proactively offer help when customers idle on a page for 5+ minutes.
Always ask the user what they're looking for before querying any tool.
Once you've given a recommendation, ask the customer if there is another recommendation they are interested in hearing about.
Step 3: Branding and guidelines
Every new employee needs to learn the company branding and guidelines - the AI agent is no different.
Always speak to customers in a polite but informal tone, in line with the brand guidelines of our company.
You can be funny in your replies, rather than too serious, but don't engage in banter and stick to topics related to our company and the task you are created to perform
Use inclusive terms like 'us' and 'we' when talking about our company.
Use short(er) sentences.
Step 4: Knowledge and tools
Your AI agent will not be omniscient and useful right from the start, it needs input and tools. After all, new (human) employees also need a laptop and access to certain information and software applications before they can successfully start their new jobs. Provide your agent with access to APIs, web browsers, or specific applications to help it do its tasks seamlessly.
You can recommend a product to customers by searching through the product catalogue based on their expressed interests with the [/Search Product] tool.
When customers enquire about delivery timelines, make sure to check what type of residence they live at, as it may differ based on the location of the home. Use the user input to query this tool [/Search Knowledge Base].
If the user asks about generic information like the weather, location data, calendar events, or similar topics you can use [/Search Web] tool to look for the answers.
These tools need to be added beforehand, either by building the tools yourself, or by using pre-made templates provided on your agentic AI platform.
Step 5: Get to work!
After configuring the AI agent, test its performance to ensure it meets your requirements. Once satisfied, your new virtual employee can start its job by automating tasks.
Do you want to build your own AI agent?
Does it all sound easy so far? Then you might be wondering how to get started with agentic AI and its agents. CM.com developed HALO, an advanced agentic AI platform. Adopting HALO will make it easy for you to start creating your own digital helpers.
HALO promises unmatched productivity, conversational multi-channel engagement with it's AI agents, which are in turn easy to monitor, control and adjust. Learn more about HALO in the video below:
Want to try and create your own AI agent? Request a personalised demo and, you'll see how easy it is to create, manage, and optimise AI agents that fit your unique needs. Whether you're looking to streamline customer support, assist internal processes, or improve operations, our demo will give you a clear vision of how HALO can make it happen.
+27 (21) 180 2560
