There’s no agreed definition of an AI agent yet. The people building them, the people selling them, and the people writing about them all mean different things by the term. There’s also a real disagreement about how to start.

The conventional wisdom is to pick a small task and let an agent take it off your plate. That’s not wrong. But the small thing you pick should be doing real work for you, or building a real skill you’ll need later. Otherwise you’re using AI to look busy.

Pat Barry and Erik Martinez sit down to work through both questions. Pat, a data scientist and AI consultant, opens with the version of the agent definition he’s heard most often: a client who literally meant a robot. From there they get into what actually counts, what doesn’t, and where most of us should start if we’re being honest with ourselves.

If you’ve ever asked yourself whether what you’re already doing counts, or whether the next thing you build is worth building, this is the one to listen to.

In this episode:

• Why nobody in the AI world has settled on what an “agent” actually is
• What counts as one (and why what you’re already doing might already qualify)
• The simple test for whether the agent you’re about to build is worth building