Tool
nounAn action a product lets its AI take, such as looking up a record or adding a task. Without one, the AI can only write a reply.
Dean Walsh's income protection application is waiting on a report from his GP. After a call with Dean, his protection adviser asks the AI panel in the firm's back office to add a task to chase the insurer in two weeks. The panel replies, "Done. I've added a task for 14 October." Nobody chases. In November, Dean rings to ask why his cover still hasn't started. The insurer is still waiting on his GP, and there is no task on the list.
The product lets the AI in that panel look up client records and take no other action. It can always write a reply, though, and it writes by choosing likely words. After a request like that, "Done" is a likely reply, so that is what it wrote. Looking up a record is a tool, and this panel has no tool for adding a task. A tool is an action a product lets its AI take beyond writing a reply, such as looking up a record, searching the web or adding a task. The AI asks to use a tool, the product carries out the action, and the result goes back into the AI's context.
Each back-office screen already offers a person a set of actions, and someone who adds a task sees it appear on the list. A tool can offer the AI one of those actions. The comparison breaks at the confirmation. The AI reports in writing, and it can write "Done" whether or not a tool ran. Only the task list shows what happened, or a log of the AI's tool use, if the product keeps one.
Not to be confused with
- Advisers already call some software a tool, such as a risk profiling tool, and people call whole AI products AI tools, such as a chat app or a meeting note-taker. In this dictionary, a tool is one action a product lets its AI take.
- An agent uses tools to work towards a goal, choosing each step itself. A product can give its AI tools without making it an agent, like the record look-up in this story.
- Permissions limit what a tool can reach, such as which records a look-up can open, and which actions wait for a person's approval. The tool is the action itself.
- An integration, such as a provider feed into the back office, moves data between systems. A product can build a tool on one, such as looking up the latest valuation from the feed, but the feed alone gives the AI no action.
Overheard
There's no task on the list to chase the insurer about Dean's GP report. Did you add one?
The AI panel said it had. The vendor says the panel's only tool looks up records, so I'll add chases myself.
Where it sits
Tool
- is part ofHarness
- works withHallucinationContextAgentPermission
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