AI agent
An AI agent is an AI system that carries out a task in several steps on its own, like researching products or booking something, not just answering a question.
An AI agent is an AI system that does a task for someone, in several steps, with little help along the way. Where a chat assistant answers a question, an agent goes and acts: it searches, opens pages, compares options, fills in forms and reports back.
For example, someone might ask an agent to find three accounting tools under $30 a month that work with Shopify, and start a trial of the best one. The agent searches, reads the tools' pricing pages, checks which ones connect to Shopify, picks one and signs up.
Why agents matter for your brand
When an agent shops or researches for someone, the person may never see your website. The agent reads it for them. If it can't find your prices, can't read a page because a script draws the text, or finds a review that says something wrong about you, it moves on to the next option.
That makes a few things more important than before:
- Pages that state the facts plainly, like prices, plans and what you integrate with
- Pages that work without scripts, since many bots only read the HTML the server sends
- What other sites say about you, because agents read those too
Agents and bots
Agents reach your site through bots. Some AI companies run separate bots for training, for search and for fetching a page because a person asked. You can see which of these your robots.txt allows. Blocking the wrong one can keep agents out.
AI agents in AnswerOrbit
Agents acting privately for one person are one thing no tracking tool can see, so we don't count them as answers. What we can show is which AI bots may read your site and which ones visit, on the Website page. You can also connect your own assistant to AnswerOrbit over MCP.