AI Agents Explained: Key Players, Use Cases and Insights 2024

Today, I am starting a new content series. I defined this series as explained and will try to examine a topic in depth every month.

We're diving deep into the world of AI agents, exploring their transformative potential, the challenges they pose, and the opportunities they present.

AI agents are not just a technological advancement; they are reshaping industries and redefining the way we interact with digital systems.

Why AI Agents matter?

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AI agents are autonomous systems designed to perceive their environment and act towards achieving specific goals. They can make decisions, plan, and execute tasks on your behalf, significantly boosting productivity and efficiency. Imagine having a virtual assistant that works 24/7 without supervision, handling everything from mundane tasks to complex problem-solving.

The Problem

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Despite technological advancements, human productivity remains limited by our capacity to manage and execute tasks efficiently. Traditional automation can only go so far, often requiring constant oversight and intervention.

The Solution

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AI agents offer limitless productivity. They can think, plan, and execute tasks autonomously, freeing up your time for more critical activities. These agents operate continuously, making real-time decisions based on data they gather, ensuring tasks are completed efficiently and effectively.

Key players in AI Agents

Auto-GPT - An open-source project that connects GPT-4 to the internet and uses apps.

BabyAGI - A Python script that plans, prioritizes, and executes tasks to achieve a goal.

Jarvis - A collaborative AI agent that automates workflows and manages code changes.

GPT-Engineer - An open-source project that can build an entire codebase with a prompt.

Claude - An AI assistant developed by Anthropic that can help with a wide range of tasks.

Perplexity AI - An AI-powered search engine and question-answering assistant.

DeepMind AlphaFold - An AI system that can accurately predict the 3D structure of proteins.

GPT Engineer - Open-source project that can build an entire codebase with a prompt.

No-Code AI Agents

AgentGPT - Browser-based no-code version of AutoGPT that allows users to build, manage, and chat with autonomous AI agents.

RelevanceAI - Recruit teams of AI agents to complete tasks on autopilot.

LiveChatAI - Customer support platform that solve %70 of customer queries.

Jarvis - Collaborative AI agent developed by Microsoft that automates workflows and manages code changes.

Auto-GPT - open-source project that connects GPT-4 to the internet and uses apps to accomplish tasks autonomously.

BabyAGI - Python script that plans, prioritizes, and executes tasks to achieve a goal.

CAMEL - AI role-playing agent where multiple agents communicate with each other to accomplish tasks.

MULTI·ON - Browses and interacts with websites on your behalf

These no-code AI agent platforms provide a range of features, from intuitive drag-and-drop interfaces to open-source flexibility.

People building AI Agents

Yohei Nakajima - Founder of BabyAGI and General Partner at UntappedVC

Andrej Karpathy -Computer scientist building JARVIS at OpenAI. Previous Director of AI at Tesla

Kanjun Qiu - CEO & Co-Founder of Generally Intelligent and General Partner at Outset Capital.

Matt Welsh - Chief Architect and Co-Founder of Fixie.ai. Previous Machine Intelligence lead at Apple and Principal Engineer at Google

Jacky Koh - Founder of RelevanceAI and building AI Workforce

Div Garg - Computer scientist and AI researcher building MULTI·ON

Emre Elbeyoglu - Founder of LiveChatAI

Eren Dik - Founder of Aicado

Real world use cases of AI Agents

Sully Omar used AutoGPT to analyze shoe competitors for market analysis.
Alamin Hossain used Inita to build a pet groomer website that handles bookings.
Asim Shrestha used AgentGPT to research and ideate on a new startup idea with $100 in funding.
Kristian Fagerlie used BabyAGI to research and generate content for a one-person AI business.
DataRobot’s Eureqa discovers new mathematical equations from raw data.
Atomwise predicts the effectiveness of potential drug molecules, expediting medicine creation.
Google's DeepVariant automates the analysis of genetic sequencing data, aiding in genomics research.
Wysa is an AI therapist that provides mental health support.
Ada Health uses AI to provide preliminary medical diagnoses.
Harvard plans to use an AI chatbot as its new computer science instructor.
An AI chatbot outperformed doctors in answering patient questions with empathy and accuracy.
Voyager is a lifelong learning AI agent that plays Minecraft on its own.
NVIDIA made non-playable characters that can have unscripted conversations.
Stanford and Google made an interactive sandbox with AI agents that made friends and threw a party.
Eric Fein lost his content writing contracts. He is now planning to become a plumber.
Olivia Lipkin was laid off from her copywriting job. She is now working as a dog walker.
Cocktail Peanut made an AI fashion blogger to put content creation on autopilot.
Kristian Fagerlie used an AI agent to research, write, and generate images for a newsletter.
Self-feedback improved AI’s task performance by ~20%.
AI agents can generate infinite prompts based on a topic.
Garret Scott got an AI agent to complete his to-do list.
Div Garg got an AI agent to book a flight in a web browser.
Matt Shumer got an AI agent to order pizza from Domino’s website.
Ammaar Reshi got an AI agent to buy groceries based on a $100 budget and his preferences.
Fireship used an AI agent to make videos in his style.
Justin Lalonde used an AI agent to automate Facebook Ads.
Pietro Schirano made DesignerGPT that designs a website based on a prompt.
Kristian Fagerlie used AI agents to research and come up with YouTube video ideas.
Patrick Foster made an AI agent that automatically writes blog posts for affiliate links.
James Baker used an AI agent to read about recent news and prepare a podcast outline.
Siraj Raval built an AI trading bot with ChatGPT. It made $60 in 24 hours with 4 trades.
TradingLab gave an AI bot $30,000 to trade stocks. It made $3,736 in a month with 47 trades.
Brian Schardt gave an AI day trader $50,000 to see if ChatGPT can make better returns than hedge funds.
Personoids solved a top-trending Github issue on its own.
Mckay Wrigley used a GPT-4 coding assistant to build a web app.
Significant Gravitas shows how to use Auto-GPT to write and debug code.
Benjamin Dehant used GPT-4 and Midjourney to make a Flappy Bird clone in 1 hour.
Juanca built an AI writing assistant that responds to emails.
Zahid Khawaja built an agent that conducts product research.

🔥 Hot Insights

AI Agents Will Become the New Smartphone: Just as smartphones became ubiquitous and indispensable, personalized AI agents will become our constant digital companions, managing our schedules, finances, and decision-making processes.
The Rise of the "AI Manager": We'll see a new job title emerge - the AI Manager, responsible for overseeing and coordinating teams of AI agents in large corporations, ensuring they work efficiently and ethically.
AI Agents Will Spark a Creativity Renaissance: By handling routine tasks, AI agents will free up human cognitive resources, leading to an explosion of creativity and innovation in arts, sciences, and entrepreneurship.
The End of Search as We Know It: Traditional search engines will become obsolete as AI agents proactively gather, filter, and present information tailored to our needs before we even ask.
AI Agents Will Revolutionize Democracy: AI agents could transform political processes by providing unbiased information, fact-checking in real-time, and even helping to draft legislation that best represents constituents' interests.
The "AI Agent Digital Divide" Will Be the New Socioeconomic Gap: Access to advanced AI agents will become a significant factor in economic and social mobility, potentially widening the gap between the "AI-haves" and "AI-have-nots".
AI Agents Will Lead to "Hyper-Personalized" Everything: From education to entertainment, products and services will be tailored to an unprecedented degree, thanks to AI agents' deep understanding of individual preferences and needs.
The Emergence of "AI Agent Anxiety": A new form of social anxiety will arise as people worry about the judgments and decisions made about them by others' AI agents.
AI Agents Will Make Formal Education Obsolete: Traditional educational institutions will be challenged as AI agents provide personalized, lifelong learning experiences tailored to individual career paths and interests.
The Birth of "Meta-Agents": We'll see the development of higher-order AI agents whose sole purpose is to manage and optimize other AI agents, creating complex hierarchies of artificial intelligence.

These hot takes represent potential future scenarios and thought-provoking ideas about AI agents' impact on society. While some may seem extreme, they're designed to stimulate discussion and consideration of this technology's far-reaching implications.

See you next "explained" series.

AI Agents, explained. 🧠