Definition
Agent and agent team
Software that takes actions on your behalf, coordinated across a workflow or an entire business chain.
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Related terms in Agents & Automation
Activation DebtThe compounding gap between product complexity and onboarding quality. Every new feature a SaaS product ships adds cognitive load for new users — but onboarding flows rarely scale in parallel. Over time, the distance between 'what the product can do' and 'what new users understand on day one' grows into a chasm. Companies don't notice because existing users aren't affected. But every new signup that leaves without activating represents revenue paid for by marketing but never collected. Identified by Quarterzip co-founders Alex and Andy as the #1 growth bottleneck across 150 post-acquisition founder interviews.ADE BenchmarkAgent Data Engineering Benchmark — the industry standard for measuring agent performance on data tasks. Altimate Core holds the number one position at 75%.AgentSoftware with an AI model at the center that takes actions on your behalf rather than only answering questions.Agent Access ControlGranular permission settings applied at the individual AI agent level - restricting which data sources, query types, cost thresholds, and channels each agent can interact with.Agent AssistThird Way's tool that supports live human agents during calls.Agent HarnessA set of components — context, governance, tools, and infrastructure — provided to an LLM so it can do specialized work effectively. The harness is what turns general-purpose AI into a trustworthy production resource.Agent swarmMultiple AI agents running simultaneously on different tasks, often with sub-agents.AgenticAI that takes actions and completes tasks, not just answers questions.