AI agent

An AI agent is software that uses a large language model to understand a request in natural language and take autonomous action toward a goal, rather than following a fixed decision tree. In customer support, an AI agent can answer questions grounded in a knowledge base, look up an order, update a cart, or book an appointment, and escalate to a human when a rule requires it.

AI agent vs traditional chatbot

A rule-based chatbot matches what your customer types against predefined patterns and returns a scripted response; anything outside those patterns fails or escalates. An AI agent, powered by conversational AI, can handle novel phrasing and multi-step requests, and can call actions (like an ecommerce order lookup) to complete the request rather than only describing what to do.

Where AI agents are deployed

Sell Whisper AI agents deploy across 13 channels (chat widget, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Slack, Shopify, WooCommerce, WordPress, a hosted agent page, a branded help center, and the API), sharing one knowledge base and one set of escalation rules regardless of channel.