The Four Types of AI Agents
Classify your agents correctly to design the right identity strategy: Personal, Consumer, Workforce, and Digital Worker.
The Four Types of AI Agents
Understanding AI agent types is critical to designing the right identity strategy. There are many ways to segment agents, but there are four general overarching types:
1. Personal Agent
"Your agent works for you"
This is an agent on an individual user's device that the user deploys to external resources to complete tasks on their behalf.
Example: ChatGPT, Gemini, or a customer's shopping assistant.
Ownership: Bring your own (BYO) / unmanaged.
Supervision: Attended.
2. Digital Assistant for Consumer
"Our agent works for you"
This is an agent under corporate control that has been deployed externally to serve customers.
Example: Brand chatbot or customer support assistant.
Ownership: Managed.
Supervision: Mixed (attended/unattended).
3. Digital Assistant for Workforce
"Our agent works for us"
This is an agent under corporate control that has been deployed internally to serve employees.
Example: HR chatbot or internal IT assistant.
Ownership: Managed.
Supervision: Mixed.
4. Digital Worker
"Our agent works autonomously for the enterprise"
This is a semi- to fully-autonomous agent deployed by the enterprise to complete tasks internally.
Example: Logistics automation agent or finance assistant.
Ownership: Managed.
Supervision: Unattended.