AI: Chatbots vs Agents

Introduction

Over the last year I’ve spoken with hundreds of probation officers and helped more than a thousand implement AI at their agency.

A common question I get is, “Is this an agent or just a chatbot”?Everyone’s heard about “agents” and how they’re different from chatbots – but few people know what the actual difference is and why it matters.

If you’re thinking about adopting AI in your probation agency, I’m here to help you clear that up!

There’s good news and bad news though.The good news is that the difference is simple, I’ll explain shortly.The bad news is because the difference is so simple it’s getting harder to tell the difference!

What’s a Chat Bot?

Have you heard people tell you that ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Grok are just chatbots?

What they’re really telling you is that these tools are only capable of answering questions, not completing tasks for you.

The flow is something like; You ask question -> Model thinks about it -> Model responds to your question.

A lot of the time this is totally acceptable!If you have a simple question about a piece of knowledge or a fact, chatbots are up to the task.

Most models you can interact with on the web have been trained on the entire perceivable internet.Some are even connected to a web search tool to let them give you real-time information.Some can even read your own documents (although this would technically make it an agent but let’s not get too deep yet…)

But what about if you want the AI to do something for you like write a report or summarize an office visit or send an email?

This is where chat bots start to break down and where Agents come into play!

What’s an Agent?

Simply put, an agent is an AI model that has access to tools that let it take actions on your behalf.

The same AI model that powers ChatGPT can also use a tool that lets it create a word document.As soon as we give the model the tool to create a word document it’s an agent!

Let’s say you need to write a probation violation.Instead of responding to you in a chat window with text, an agent would create the document for you to download.

In essence, an agent completes the task for you rather than responding to you with text that you’ll use to complete a task elsewhere.

Where this can get confusing is that agents can live anywhere.For example, in CaseBase, our AI agent Casey is mostly controlled through a chat interface.

So while it feels like a chatbot, it’s actually an agent.

The key distinction is that an agent is simply an AI model with tools it uses to create things. A chatbot is just an AI model without tools it can use to create things.

How Can I Use an Agent in Probation?

I must admit; I have a bias here. At CaseBase, we’re building Casey, and AI agent designed specifically for the needs of probation officers.

The good news is, this experience has introduced me to hundreds of practical use cases for AI agents in probation.You can learn about 3 use cases you can implement today by reading this post I wrote a few months back.How to Actually Use AI in Probation

It’s likely that you have your own use cases you’re thinking of.To help you explore those, let me break down what Agents can do for you.

You can break down the work Agents do into two categories, Research and Create.

Relatedly, Agents can typically be run synchronously (you ask it to do something right now) or asynchronously (you ask it to do something later).

Here are some examples we see probation officers doing in CaseBase:

Research.Ask your AI agent to research whatever you want and report back to you.

Synchronous: My client needs a job and lives 15 miles southeast of Dallas Texas, can you find job openings they can apply to?

Asynchronous: Every day look at my office visit schedule and tell me what I should talk about with each one of my clients.

Create.Ask your AI agent to go produce a probation work product for you.

Synchronous: My client just failed a drug test, write a probation violation for them and save it as a word document.

Asynchronous: Every Monday look at the interlock reports I receive for my DWI caseload and write a summary for each client whose report showed suspicious activity or a clear violation.

What Agents Make Possible

Agents give probation officers a new way to get work done.Whether you need research, a document, or a recurring workflow, Agents can help you move from asking a question to completing the task.

If you have any questions about implementing AI agents in your agency don't hesitate to reach out to me at tyler@casebase.co. I'm happy to walk you through how AI agents work, some possible use cases, and what we're seeing other agencies do with agents today.

Autonomous Agents Are Available in CaseBase Today

I’m excited to release Autonomous Agents in CaseBase today.

If you're a CaseBase user, share your favorite agents with us!