Seven kinds of AI Agents
When to use AI Deep Research
Cloudflare will now block AI crawlers by default
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Seven kinds of AI Agents
The term “agent” or “agentic” has become so ubiquitous in the business world that it can now seem to mean everything or nothing at all. In its simplest form, an agent is artificial intelligence that handles multistep tasks without requiring a human to steer it the whole time. In other words, an agent goes beyond what the basic version of ChatGPT can do.
In the past year, AI firms have launched agents that appear in stand-alone apps, as sidebars or add-ons in existing apps, or as dialog boxes on webpage. You’re now likely to encounter seven types of AI agents in the wild as a consumer, where they may aim to resolve your customer support complaints without requiring a human employee, or in the workplace, where they handle tasks like processing human resources forms or resolving IT tickets. Customers of AI agents for work tasks typically pay a premium.
What sets AI agents apart from more rudimentary chatbots is their ability to take multiple actions, sometimes by connecting to various applications like Salesforce CRM, coding software Jira or repositories such as GitHub to complete tasks. A new technology is making it easier for agents to access multiple applications to solve problems. The agents can now use MCP or similar open-source protocols to connect to and use other applications or to tap information from thousands of apps like Slack or Jira.
Agents often combine LLMs with reasoning models or other types of planning components that figure out what steps to take, and in what order, to complete a task. They usually include memory systems so the agent can better remember prior interactions and a customer’s preferences. And they usually require so-called orchestrator software that coordinates all of these technologies.
Besides holding a conversation, many agents take actions like searching for information in a company’s database or sending an email on a customer’s behalf. For example, Gmail users can now schedule a meeting with colleagues by giving Gemini a time and list of attendees, and the AI will automatically create a Google Calendar event and email the attendees.
Similarly, professional services giant EY developed an agent to automate compliance audits of customers’ IT systems, according to principal Sameer Gupta. The cost of running the agent is “a significant step up” compared to rudimentary chatbots, Gupta said, but he estimates it has saved EY between 5% to 20% compared to paying people to handle the risk analysis manually....
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When to use AI Deep Research
Searching for the perfect electric car could have taken hours. Instead, I opened ChatGPT, clicked the deep research button and walked away from my computer. By the time I’d made coffee, ChatGPT delivered an impressive 6,800-word report. This year, ChatGPT and other popular AI chatbots introduced advanced research modes. When activated, the AI goes beyond basic chat, taking more time, examining more sources and composing a more thorough response. In short: It’s just more.
Now free users can access this feature, with limits. Recent upgrades, such as OpenAI’s latest GPT-5 model, have made research even more powerful. For the past few months, I’ve experimented with deep research for complicated questions involving big purchases and international trip planning. Could a robot-generated report help me make tough decisions? Or would I end up with 6,000-plus words of AI nonsense?
The bots answered questions I didn’t think to ask. Though they occasionally led me astray, I realized my days of long Google web search quests were likely over. This is what I learned about what to deep research, which bots work best and how to avoid common pitfalls.
Deep research is best for queries with multiple factors to weigh. I fed my many needs into several chatbots. When I hit enter, the AI showed me their “thinking.” First, they made a plan. Then, they launched searches. Lots of searches. In deep research mode, AI repeats this cycle—search then synthesize—multiple times until satisfied. Occasionally, though, the bot can get stuck in its own rabbit hole and you need to start over.
Results varied. Perplexity delivered the quickest results, but hallucinated an all-wheel drive model that doesn’t exist. Copilot and Gemini provided helpful tables. ChatGPT took more time because it asked clarifying questions first—a clever way to narrow the scope and personalize the report. Claude analyzed the most sources: 386.
My go-to bot is typically Claude for its strong privacy defaults. But for research, comparing results across multiple services proved most useful. Models that appeared on every list became our top contenders. Now I’m about to test drive a Kia Niro, and potentially spend tens of thousands based on a robot’s recommendation. Basic chat missed the mark, proposing two models that are too big for parallel parking on city streets.
Other successful deep research queries included a family-friendly San Francisco trip itinerary, a comparison of popular 529 savings plans, a detailed summary of scientific consensus on intermittent fasting and a guide to improving my distance swimming. On ChatGPT and Claude, you can add your Google Calendar and other accounts as sources, and ask the AI to, for example, plan activities around your schedule. Deep research isn’t always a final answer, but it can help you get there.
Ready for AI to do your research? Switch on the “deep research” or “research” toggle next to the AI chat box. ChatGPT offers five deep research queries a month to free users, while Perplexity’s free plan includes five daily. Copilot, Gemini and Grok limit free access, but don’t share specifics. Paid plans increase limits and offer access to more advanced models. Claude’s research mode requires a subscription....
Read on The Wall Street Journal
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Cloudflare will now block AI crawlers by default
The internet architecture provider will also let some publishers make known AI scrapers pay to crawl their sites. The major internet architecture provider Cloudflare will now block known AI web crawlers by default to prevent them from “accessing content without permission or compensation,” according to an announcement on Tuesday. With the change, Cloudflare will start asking new domain owners whether they want to allow AI scrapers, and will even let some publishers implement a “Pay Per Crawl” fee.
The Pay Per Crawl program will let publishers set a price for AI scrapers to access their content. AI companies can then view pricing and choose whether to register for the “Pay Per Crawl” fee or turn away. This is only available for “a group of some of the leading publishers and content creators” for now, but Cloudflare says it will ensure “AI companies can use quality content the right way — with permission and compensation.”
Cloudflare has been helping domain owners fight AI crawlers for a while now. The company started letting websites block AI crawlers in 2023, but it only applied to ones that abide by a site’s robots.txt file, the unenforceable agreement that signals whether bots can scrape its content. Cloudflare began allowing websites to block “all” AI bots last year — whether they respect a site’s robots.txt file or not — and now this setting is enabled by default for new Cloudflare customers. (The company identifies scrapers to block by comparing them to its list of known AI bots.) Cloudflare also rolled out a feature in March that sends web-crawling bots into an “AI Labyrinth” to deter them from scraping sites without permission.
Several major publishers and online platforms, including The Associated Press, The Atlantic, Fortune, Stack Overflow, and Quora, are on board with Cloudflare’s new AI crawler restrictions, as websites contend with a future where more people are finding information through AI chatbots, rather than search engines. “People trust the AI more over the last six months, which means they’re not reading original content,” Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said during the Axios Live event last week.
Additionally, Cloudflare says it’s working with AI companies to help verify their crawlers and allow them to “clearly state their purpose,” such as whether they’re using the content for training, inference, or search. Website owners can then review this information and determine which crawlers to let in.
“Original content is what makes the Internet one of the greatest inventions in the last century, and we have to come together to protect it,” Prince said in the press release. “AI crawlers have been scraping content without limits. Our goal is to put the power back in the hands of creators, while still helping AI companies innovate.”....
Enjoy, SBalley Team!