AgentorAssistant
An assistant waits for your message, answers, then stops: you are the one driving the exchange. An agent receives a goal and chains the steps itself until it reaches it, deciding at each turn what it does next.
Point by point
| Criterion | Floor 3Floor 3 · The Agentthe block caught in a loop: it starts again until it gets thereAgent | Floor 2Floor 2 · The Harnessthe block and its bolted-on plates: what gets added to itAssistant |
|---|---|---|
| What sets it off | A goal | Your message |
| Who decides the next step | The model, at each turn | You |
| Number of round trips | As many as it takes | One per message |
| Relation to time | A task that lasts | Immediate |
| Effects on the world | Expected, through tools | Rare, at your request |
| What you watch | Cost, traces, stopping points | The quality of the answer |
On the ground four situations
A style checker in your word processor: you write a sentence, it offers another one.
Floor 2 · The Harnessthe block and its bolted-on plates: what gets added to itAssistantIt waits for an input and returns an output. You are the one who decides whether there is a next step.
A regulatory watch that, every Monday, looks for newly published texts, discards duplicates, cross-checks two sources and publishes a note.
Floor 3 · The Agentthe block caught in a loop: it starts again until it gets thereAgentNobody dictates the steps to it one by one: it keeps going until the note exists.
A customer support system plugged into the whole knowledge base, which cites its sources and can open a ticket.
Floor 2 · The Harnessthe block and its bolted-on plates: what gets added to itAssistantThe useful counter-example: plenty of tools and access make a rich harness, not autonomy. It answers, then it stops.
An email sorter that applies your rules: if the subject contains “invoice”, file it in the accounting folder.
WorkflowThe sequence is written in advance by a human, and no model chooses anything at all. This is the third category, the one everyone forgets.
The test that settles it
Remove the human just after the first request. If the system carries on working, it is an agent. If it waits, it is an assistant.
The trap
An assistant plugged into a great many tools is still an assistant. What makes an agent is not the number of tools, it is who chooses the next step.
Check click your answer
Level 1 · Recognise
What, on its own, turns an assistant into an agent?
Level 2 · Distinguish
A system is told “prepare the client file”, consults three databases, drafts a note and stops for approval before sending. Agent or assistant?
Level 2 · Distinguish
You are moving a service from assistant to agent. Which indicator becomes central, when it was secondary before?