There’s been a lot of talk this year around AI agents. They’ve been predicted to be the next stage of AI development after generative AI took the world by storm. But what exactly are they? And more importantly, what can they actually do for you and your business?
I wanted to create this guide to dispel some of the confusion around AI agents and give you practical examples of how they work. Because whilst they’re definitely not 100% foolproof or 100% accurate, they can be incredibly powerful tools when used correctly.
What Are AI Agents?
Think of AI agents as autonomous assistants that go far beyond what we’re currently using with tools like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, or Claude. At the moment, when you’re using these tools, they can only really do one or two tasks at a time. You need to break everything down and be very much in control of each step.
However, an AI agent is autonomous. You still need to give it a prompt and instruction, but it can handle multi-step tasks. You ask it to do something, it identifies the steps needed, and then goes away and does it on its own. It might come back and ask for clarification, but then it’ll complete the task and return with results.
Where we’re heading is pretty amazing. People are already using AI search much more than Google, and this trend is ramping up. Pretty soon, you’ll be able to get an AI agent to go off and actually make purchases for you (though that involves giving it your credit card information, which is a whole other workshop on security that needs to be sorted out first).
How AI Agents Work
The process is quite straightforward:
- Goal Setting: You define the objective (for example, “Audit my website”)
- Task Breakdown: The agent creates its own plan (crawl → analyse → report)
- Tool Utilisation: It determines what tools it needs – browser, spreadsheets, code – whatever’s required
- Self-Evaluation: It continuously asks itself, “Is this what they want?” and adapts as needed
- Results Delivery: It completes the task and provides a comprehensive report
The beauty is that you just give it the objective and it works out the steps for itself. Before, with something like ChatGPT, you’d have to specifically give it each step. Now you just give it the goal and off it goes.
Key Benefits
Time Efficiency: This is the big one. The time saving is amazing. I’ll give you some examples shortly of how I’ve used it and saved myself hours of work.
Increased Creativity: It means you can focus on the more creative aspects of your work instead of mundane tasks.
24/7 Availability: Unlike relying on a staff member, you’re not limited to business hours.
Quality Consistency: It’s pretty good at maintaining quality, though it does still make mistakes. AI is consistently inconsistent, so you need to check everything and be the subject matter expert to pick up anything that’s incorrect.
Cost-Effective: Today I’ll be using the free version of Manus. If you pay for it, you get more tokens (which power the actions and words it produces), but there are free options available.
Real-World Examples
Let me share some practical applications:
Content Creation: Some people use agents to generate content ideas or even to analyse the best performing posts of competitors and come back with recommendations.
Email Outreach: They’re excellent for sending personalised emails and automating that process.
Podcast Opportunities: You can give it types of podcasts in your industry, and it can find those podcasts and apply to be a guest on your behalf. That saves enormous amounts of time.
Research and Analysis: They’re very good at creating reports, analysing data, and creating slide decks.
My Personal Experience
Last week I did a workshop on Canva’s new AI tools. I wanted to give participants a step-by-step workbook on how to use those tools. If I’d developed that myself, it would’ve taken me a full day. Instead, I used an AI agent to develop that workbook with all the steps, then I went through the process to make sure it worked (like testing a recipe before you share it). It was pretty accurate and saved me hours of work.
Another example: I’ve been volunteering to look after our research group’s website at UniSC. I gave the agent the link to our current website and asked it to compare that to other research groups’ websites around Australia and give me recommendations on how we can improve ours. It did exactly that – very thorough analysis with actionable recommendations.
Risks and Considerations
Let’s be realistic about the challenges:
Hallucinations: They can still make things up. That’s why you need to be the subject matter expert and fact-check everything.
Bias: AI is generally trained on biased data because it comes from what’s already existing on the internet. You need to be aware of these biases and push back to get results that better represent our population and society.
Data Security: Make sure you’re not putting sensitive information into an AI agent. Check what happens with the data you input – is it being trained on that data? Is it safe?
Skill Erosion: If we’re getting AI to do all our tasks, we need to ensure we can still do them ourselves if needed. You don’t want your skills diminished because you’re over-relying on AI.
Cost and Access: Some agents require fees or invitations. OpenAI’s Operator, for example, costs $200 per month for premium access.
Getting Started with AI Agents
If you want to try an AI agent, I recommend starting small. Pick a task that takes you forever and that you don’t want to do – that’s a really good starting point.
Be Precise: Clear prompts yield better results. When the agent asks you questions, give it the information it needs to provide something meaningful for you.
Always Review: Please fact-check everything. Even with the examples I’ve shown, I still need to add my own human touch to make sure it aligns with my brand voice.
Stay Ethical: Use AI responsibly and keep learning and practising with it.
The Bottom Line
AI agents like Manus can act as super-capable team members, handling the detail work so you can focus on creative, human-centric activities. They’re not perfect, but they’re pretty impressive when you consider where we are right now.
The key is starting with tasks that are time-consuming but not mission-critical, getting comfortable with how they work, and gradually expanding their use as you build confidence in their capabilities.
What task would you most like to hand over to an AI agent? The mundane research that takes hours? Content creation that leaves you staring at a blank page? Or perhaps that website audit you’ve been putting off for months?
The technology is here now, and whilst it’s not foolproof, it’s certainly worth experimenting with. Just remember to keep that human oversight and add your own sparkle to whatever it produces.
Watch the Full Webinar
Want to see these AI agents in action? I demonstrated three practical examples during the live session, showing exactly how tools like Manus work step-by-step. You can watch the complete webinar recording below to see the live website audit, brand narrative creation, and social media planning demos.
You can also view the complete slide deck from the presentation:
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Our next webinar on “Fact-Checking with AI” is coming up on 28th July at 4:30pm AEST. Learn more by joining our community.