The basics
Three terms, one picture
Most of the current AI conversation fits in three ideas, stacked on top of each other.
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AI — the model
Software trained on enormous amounts of text until it becomes very good at understanding and producing language. On its own it can only do one thing: read text in, write text out. It cannot open a file, check a calendar, or touch any system.
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AI agent
A model that has been given a goal, plus software built around it so it can take real actions — search, read documents, update a record — step by step, instead of just answering a single question.
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Agentic AI
The working pattern that makes agents useful: think about the next step, act, look at what happened, repeat — until the goal is reached. With humans deciding the limits: what it may do, and when it must hand over.
The topics
Pick a topic
Each topic is a short, self-contained explainer that ends with the design angle: what it means for the customer experience we own.
Topic 01
What is an AI harness?
The behaviour of an AI agent is decided mostly by the structure built around the model — its instructions, tools, memory and guardrails. Every one of them is an experience decision.
Read the explainer →Topic 02
What are evals?
How do you know an AI agent is any good — and who decides what “good” means? Why writing the quality bar for an agent is service design work.
Read the explainer →More topics will follow as the deep dive continues.