From AI assistants to AI agents: an innovation continuum

A key strength of GenAI is its capacity to adapt to a wide range of applications across diverse use cases with high impact results, with one of the most significant being the way that GenAI has transformed the pre-GenAI wave of AI assistants and chatbots. First wave AI assistants were rule-based and rely on
predefined workflows and preprogrammed responses and narrow natural language understanding (NLP). Their capabilities were typically limited to specific tasks like answering FAQs, executing simple commands, or retrieving predefined information. GenAI assistants, powered by sophisticated large
language models (LLMs), have improved traditional AI assistants by enabling them to better understand context and generate nuanced, human-like responses, often in near-real time. This makes GenAI assistants more versatile, and allows for more engaging, personalized multi-turn conversations.