What is an AI agent? Explained with an SEO example

An AI agent is software that gets a goal and decides for itself which steps and tools it needs to reach it. After each step it checks whether it worked. A chatbot waits for your next question. An agent gets to work: it looks up information, does something, looks at the result and chooses the next step.

What is an AI agent according to the people who build them?

Anthropic, the maker of Claude, draws a clear line in Building effective agents. A workflow is a system where a language model and tools work together through predefined paths. An agent is a system where the language model directs its own process and tool use.

IBM arrives at the same place in What are AI agents?. According to IBM, an AI agent carries out tasks autonomously, designing its own workflow with the tools available.

The key in both definitions is who decides the steps. In ordinary software and in a workflow, a person laid down the steps in advance. In an agent, the model chooses them along the way, based on what it encounters.

Chatbot, AI assistant, automation or agent?

The difference is who decides the steps and whether the system does something itself. For an auto repair shop in Columbus, Ohio, it looks like this:

	What it does	Who decides the steps	Example for an auto repair shop in Columbus
Chatbot	Answers questions in a conversation	Nobody, it only responds	A chat window that gives the shop’s opening hours
AI assistant	Helps with a task you steer	You, at every step	You ask ChatGPT for a Facebook post about the winter check
Automation, such as a Zap in Zapier	Runs fixed steps when something happens	You, once, in advance	Every online booking lands in the shop schedule automatically
AI agent	Works toward a goal and chooses its own steps	The model, within your limits	Suggesting an appointment to customers whose oil change is due within a month, at a time the shop has room

IBM describes a chatbot without agent capabilities as a system without tools, memory and reasoning. Such a chatbot can only handle short goals, does not plan ahead and needs your input every time.

The difference between automation and an agent is subtler. A Zap follows the rule you made, even if the situation changes. An agent adapts: if a customer already has an appointment, it skips them. On the other hand, an agent is less predictable than a fixed rule. Anthropic therefore advises choosing the simplest solution and only adding complexity when needed. We put it even shorter: if a fixed Zap works, leave it alone.

The five parts of an AI agent

An AI agent has five parts. If one is missing, you are looking at a chatbot or a fixed script.

1. The goal is an outcome you can measure, such as “more clicks from Google on my service pages”. A single task like “write a text” is too small.
2. The language model plans and decides. That is the AI that understands and writes text, such as Claude, GPT or Gemini.
3. Tools are the connections the agent uses to see or do things. Think of a calendar, an online store, Search Console or your WordPress site. IBM calls this tool calling. That is how the agent fetches current information and splits its task into subtasks.
4. Memory lets the agent remember what it did before and what that produced, so it does not repeat an approach that failed.
5. The loop of planning, doing and checking holds it all together. After each step the agent looks at the real result, not at what it thinks happened. Anthropic calls that ground truth from the environment. IBM describes the same loop as think, act and observe.

Two brakes come with that loop. According to Anthropic, an agent can pause for human feedback, at fixed checkpoints or when it gets stuck. A stopping rule keeps it in check, such as a maximum number of attempts.

What does an AI agent do in a small business? Five examples

An AI agent takes over recurring work that consists of several steps. Five examples, each with the moment where a person decides.

Accounting firm in Denver

Goal: every tax file complete before the deadline. The agent checks per client which documents are in and what is still missing. If, for example, the mortgage interest statement (Form 1098) is missing, it prepares a reminder. A staff member approves the emails before they go out.

Online store for bike parts

A customer emails to ask when their order will arrive. The agent looks up the order and checks stock and shipping status. Then it sends a reply with the expected delivery date. The store gets fewer emails about delivery times. If the message is about a return or a complaint, the agent hands it to a staff member.

HVAC contractor in Tampa

Goal: from quote request to a scheduled home visit. The agent reads the request and asks for missing details, such as the age of the system and a photo of the unit. Then it suggests three times from the technician’s calendar. The customer picks one.

Real estate agent in Austin

Scheduling a showing often takes a few calls back and forth. An agent matches the requests with the free slots of the agent and the seller. As soon as both sides can make it, it puts forward a proposal. Only when the agent says yes does the invitation go out.

Auto repair shop in Columbus

Goal: more clicks from Google on the pages about oil changes and brake repair. The owner decides in advance what the agent may change without their approval. We work this example out below, because you can see every step of the loop in it.

In every example, a person decides at a fixed moment. That is how a good agent is built.

Worked example: SEO for an auto repair shop in Columbus

SEO is a good task for an agent. The work recurs every week. You measure the result in Search Console. And almost every change can be undone.

Take the auto repair shop in Columbus, with a WordPress site. This is what the SEO work looks like, step by step:

Step	At the auto repair shop in Columbus
Goal	More clicks from Google on the pages about oil changes and brake repair
Tools	Search Console for the positions in Google, and a plugin that connects the WordPress site
Plan	Every Monday, choose up to 5 improvements
Do	Adjust titles, descriptions, internal links and alt text on the site
Measure	From 4 weeks after an improvement, check how many extra clicks the pages get from Google

What one round looks like

The oil change page gets impressions for “oil change columbus”, but few clicks. In one round, the agent can make these changes:

1. The title was “Oil Change | Services” (21 characters). After the round it is “Oil Change Columbus | Same-Day Service, Free Inspection” (55 characters). The search term is up front now. The promise was already on the page.
2. There was no description, so Google picked a piece of text from the page. The new description reads: “Oil change in Columbus, often the same day. Add a free brake and tire check, so you only come in once. Book your appointment online in a minute.” That is a meta description of about 145 characters. It says what you get and what to do now.
3. The blog post “How often should you change your oil?” gets a link to the service page. The anchor text is “get an oil change in Columbus”. Why that works is in good anchor text for internal links.
4. The photo “IMG_4021.jpg” had no description. After the round, the alt text is: “Mechanic checks the brakes of a car during an oil change”. More examples in alt text for your images.

Where you stay in control

With SEO it is easy to draw the lines. A new title or description is small work, and you can put it back in seconds. A new blog post is bigger; you want to read it first. So a good setup lets small improvements through on its own and puts bigger pieces in front of you first.

GreatCompany’s Automatic plan will do this work for WordPress sites, for $99 a month with no annual contract. Page improvements go through directly by default. If you want to see them first, every proposal comes by email and you click Yes or No. If something goes live that you do not like, you undo that improvement with one click. Blog posts are off by default; if you turn them on, they come for approval first. For the auto repair shop, that new oil change title from the example could be ready on a Monday. How that works on your own site is in WordPress SEO on autopilot.

What such an agent does specifically for SEO, and which questions to ask beforehand, is in AI SEO agent.

What are the risks of AI agents, and how do you stay in control?

The biggest risk is that an agent makes a mistake on its own and builds on it. Anthropic writes that autonomous agents cost more and that errors can compound. Anthropic therefore recommends testing an agent thoroughly in a sandboxed environment first, with clear limits. IBM names two more risks. An agent can keep calling the same tool endlessly. And if you connect an agent to customer systems without oversight, you run privacy risks.

Five controls make the difference. Ask every agent vendor the questions in the right-hand column:

Control	What it means	Question for the vendor
Approve	A person says yes before anything irreversible happens	Which actions does the agent take without me?
Undo	Every change can be reversed	How do I undo a change from last week?
Limits	What the agent may touch, and how often, is fixed	What can the agent not do, even if it wanted to?
Measure	The result is compared with the situation before	How do I see whether it paid off?
Access	A connection you can revoke, without handing over your password	How does the agent log in to my systems?

Our rule: anything that cannot be undone, an agent only does after your yes. Payments, an email to all your customers or prices in your store belong there. IBM also recommends human approval for such high-impact actions. If an agent works with customer data, privacy law applies as it does to any other processing.

Where does a small business start?

Start with one task that meets three requirements. It recurs every week, the result is measurable and every step can be undone. Do not start with an agent that answers all customer questions on your behalf. There a mistake is immediately visible to your customer and hard to take back.

SEO for your own site meets all three. That is why it is a good first step for many small businesses. Want to get experience with AI as an assistant first? Use 20 SEO prompts for ChatGPT. If you let an agent write texts too, check them with the six steps to make AI content sound human. And to see what else can be improved on a WordPress site, read our guide to SEO for WordPress sites.