What Is an AI Agent? Complete Guide to Autonomous AI (2026)
Blog post from Coval
AI agents are sophisticated systems that employ language models to autonomously execute multi-step tasks by utilizing external tools, distinguishing them from earlier AI systems such as chatbots and copilots through their autonomy, tool use, and goal-directed reasoning. These agents are increasingly deployed across various fields, including voice, chat, coding, and browser/research, each presenting unique evaluation challenges. Despite high success rates in controlled environments, there is often a significant drop in performance under real-world conditions, necessitating a robust evaluation framework based on functional correctness, tool use accuracy, behavioral quality, and safety/compliance. This continuous evaluation is crucial for identifying and mitigating failures that traditional QA processes might miss. The complexity of building an effective evaluation infrastructure often leads teams to consider purchasing rather than building these systems to better allocate engineering resources and ensure the agent's reliability and effectiveness in production environments.
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