--- title: What is an AI agent? | daily.dev description: Harrison Chase from LangChain explores the definition of AI agents, proposing that rather than debating a binary definition, it's more useful to think of... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-an-ai-agent--6mt7140sx twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: What is an AI agent? | daily.dev og:description: Harrison Chase from LangChain explores the definition of AI agents, proposing that rather than debating a binary definition, it's more useful to think of... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-an-ai-agent--6mt7140sx og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/6mT7140SX.png og:image:alt: What is an AI agent? og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # What is an AI agent? **[LangChain](https://daily.dev/sources/langchain)** · 5 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Harrison Chase from LangChain explores the definition of AI agents, proposing that rather than debating a binary definition, it's more useful to think of systems as existing on an 'agentic' spectrum. The spectrum ranges from simple LLM routers to fully autonomous agents. The more agentic a system is, the more it benefits from specialized orchestration frameworks, durable execution, real-time interaction, evaluation tooling, and observability. Chase argues this framing motivates new infrastructure like LangGraph and LangSmith, which are purpose-built for agentic applications. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Getting Started with Agentic AI in LangGraph](https://daily.dev/posts/getting-started-with-agentic-ai-in-langgraph-ab1wd94ns) · DigitalOcean Community · 12 upvotes · 0 comments - [How to Build Effective Agentic Systems with LangGraph](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-build-effective-agentic-systems-with-langgraph-f9gsgsdr8) · Towards Data Science · 18 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#llm](https://daily.dev/tags/llm), [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#langchain](https://daily.dev/tags/langchain), [#langgraph](https://daily.dev/tags/langgraph) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-an-ai-agent--6mt7140sx) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"What is an AI agent?","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-an-ai-agent--6mt7140sx","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-an-ai-agent--6mt7140sx"},"datePublished":"2026-07-08T19:23:03.984Z","dateModified":"2026-07-08T19:23:34.003Z","description":"Harrison Chase from LangChain explores the definition of AI agents, proposing that rather than debating a binary definition, it's more useful to think of...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/2aea86e8073219b160dfb9bdfb43fa58?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/2aea86e8073219b160dfb9bdfb43fa58?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"LangChain","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"LangChain","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/0f4f2629e0724a849823f8cd0d913e13","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/langchain"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-an-ai-agent--6mt7140sx","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"llm,ai-agents,langchain,langgraph","timeRequired":"PT5M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"LangChain","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/langchain"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"What is an AI agent?"}]} ```