All terms
A chatbot answers. An agent acts. Given access to your data and tools, an agent can look up a customer, draft a quote, check stock and schedule a follow-up.
Agents are most valuable where work is high-volume, rule-heavy and text-based: customer enquiries, quoting, document processing, internal support.
They need boundaries. A well-designed agent has defined permissions, an audit trail, and a clear escalation path to a human.
In practice
A WhatsApp agent handles pricing questions, captures the lead, and hands over to a salesperson only when the enquiry is qualified.
