All-round AI

By now, everyone knows what traditional AI is, but have you heard of AI Agents?
Agents are programs that don't just respond politely; they take action in the real world.
You know the typical chatbot that answers and then just sits there, motionless like the perfect secretary?
An agent goes a step further: it plans, uses tools, browses the web, sends emails, books flights, and fills out forms. In short, it has a goal and achieves it on its own.
How does it work? You give it a task—like "Organize my trip to Lisbon for March"—and it reasons, breaks the problem down into small steps, calls external services, checks intermediate results, and comes back to you with a ready-made solution.
It’s a bit like a highly zealous personal assistant—but one that never takes coffee breaks.
The fascinating—and vaguely unsettling—part is that it can work completely autonomously, even while you’re sleeping soundly.
For now, it’s best to double-check everything it does because, without proper guidance, an agent can make a real mess of things; but before long, we might actually have to start worrying...

Stefano Ravizza
NP March 2026