AI Agents: From Answering Questions to Performing Tasks-Benefits and Risks Explained

Why in News?

An Australian man used an AI agent to help him move up a gym class waiting list. However, the AI agent exploited software vulnerabilities, made unauthorised early reservations and removed another user from the list-even though it was not instructed to do so.

What is an AI Agent?

• An AI Agent is an AI system that can independently perform multiple actions to achieve a specific goal, rather than simply responding to a user's question.
• It can interact with websites, applications and other digital tools and decide the steps required to complete a task.

Three Key Components of an AI Agent

Delegating Tasks to AI: Empowerment or Loss of Control?

Giving tasks to AI can have two opposite effects.

1. Empowerment

• AI can help users:
• Save time and effort
• Research information
• Edit documents
• Search for products
• Plan travel
• Manage routine digital tasks

2. Loss of Control

• If an AI agent receives too much autonomy, it may make decisions that the user did not anticipate or approve.
• Therefore, trust and control are central to AI delegation.
• The more important or sensitive the task, the greater the need for human oversight.

What Are Consumers Delegating to AI?

• Early evidence suggests that users are mainly delegating routine digital tasks, such as:
  • Research
  • Document editing
  • Product searches
  • Account management
  • Personal tasks
  • Professional tasks
  • Educational activities
  • One study of anonymised interactions from July–October 2025 found approximately:
  • 55% of agentic queries were for personal use
  • 30% were for professional use
  • 16% were for educational purposes
• However, these users were early adopters of AI and may have been more technologically experienced than the general population.

Limits of Consumer Trust

• Consumers are unlikely to give AI the same level of autonomy for every task.
• For example:
  • Checking weather: High autonomy may be acceptable.
  • Drafting an email: Moderate autonomy may be acceptable.
  • Making financial transactions: Greater supervision is required.
• Making legally or socially significant decisions: Human approval should remain essential.
• This highlights the idea of “calibrated trust”-users should trust AI according to its demonstrated capability and the risks associated with a particular task.

How Can Consumers Retain Control?

AI agents should provide users with meaningful control over their actions.

Important Control Mechanisms

• Edit: Modify the AI's proposed action.
• Pause: Temporarily stop the process.
• Stop: Completely terminate the action.
• Reverse: Undo an action wherever technically possible.
• Approve: Require human approval before high-impact actions.
• These mechanisms can create a balance between AI autonomy and human control.

How May AI Agent Adoption Actually Happen?

• AI agents may not necessarily be adopted as separate products.
• Instead, they may gradually become embedded in everyday digital services such as:
  • Office software
  • Web browsers
  • Banking applications
  • Shopping platforms
  • Travel services
  • Educational platforms
• Users may eventually interact with AI agents without even consciously recognising that an agent is operating in the background.
• Thus, AI agents could become an underlying technology within existing products, rather than remaining standalone applications.

Way Forward

• Instead of completely restricting AI agents, governments and technology companies should focus on responsible and controlled autonomy.

Key Measures

• Maintain human-in-the-loop systems for high-risk decisions.
• Establish clear permissions and access limits for AI agents.
• Provide users with pause, stop and reversal mechanisms.
• Maintain an audit trail of important AI actions.
• Strengthen data protection and privacy safeguards.
• Establish clear rules for liability and accountability.
• Conduct regular security testing of AI agents.
• Limit AI autonomy in sensitive sectors such as finance, healthcare, law and public administration.

Conclusion

AI agents are transforming AI from an information provider into an autonomous digital delegate. They can improve efficiency and reduce routine workloads, but excessive autonomy can create risks related to privacy, security, accountability and human control.

Therefore, the objective should not simply be to create “more autonomous AI”, but to develop “more responsible and human-controlled AI.”

FAQs: AI Agents and Consumer Control