What is an AI agent?
Everyone talks about AI agents and almost nobody explains what they are. This guide covers it in five minutes, without jargon and with real business examples.
The short definition
An AI agent is a program that uses an artificial intelligence model to do work for you, not just answer you. You give it a goal ("handle my customers' questions", "follow up on quotes") and it decides the steps, uses its tools and reports the result.
Isn't that just an AI chat?
No. A chat replies when you type and forgets when you close the window. An agent has its own memory, works even when you are not around and can act: send a message, check your calendar, prepare a summary every morning. We cover the full difference in the agent vs chatbot guide.
What it can do for a business
The most common uses are not futuristic, they are everyday work: answering customers on WhatsApp with your business information, resolving repetitive support questions, doing the sales follow-up that never gets done and preparing summaries of what happened while you were not looking.
The key is that the agent remembers. Every conversation and every correction you make stays in its memory, so it improves with use instead of starting from scratch every time.
What it needs to work
Four pieces: an AI model (the "brain", like Claude or GPT), a memory to store what it learns, channels to talk through (WhatsApp, Telegram, email...) and a place to live: a server. If the server is yours, your data and your memory are yours too; that is the difference with renting someone else's AI.
How to start without a technical team
Setting all this up by hand requires server skills. Evy does it for you: it installs an assistant on your own server, connects it to your channels and keeps it running. You talk to it from the start; we take care of the technical side.