Autonomy terms
How much an agent does on its own — from assistant to fully autonomous.
- 🧭AutonomyAgent
A software system powered by an LLM that perceives its environment, plans actions, and executes them — usually across multiple steps and tools.
- 🧭AutonomyAgentic AI
AI systems that act with autonomy — perceiving their environment, planning multi-step actions, calling tools, and iterating toward a goal — as opposed to single-turn generative AI that only responds to prompts.
- 🧭AutonomyAgentic workflow
A workflow where an AI agent plans, executes, and adapts a multi-step process — autonomously calling tools, reading data, and looping until the goal is met.
- 🧭AutonomyAI handoff
The transition pattern where an AI agent transfers control of a task to a human or to another agent — preserving context, state, and prior actions so the receiver can continue seamlessly.
- 🧭AutonomyAI pair programming
A workflow where an engineer codes alongside an AI assistant that suggests, completes, and reviews code in real time — distinct from autonomous coding agents that ship PRs without human intervention.
- 🧭AutonomyAutonomous agent
An agent that plans, executes, and finishes a multi-step task without asking for human approval between steps.
- 🧭AutonomyCopilot
An AI tool that suggests changes inline and waits for the user to accept — the human stays in the driver's seat.
- 🧭AutonomyHierarchical agent
A multi-agent architecture where a "manager" or "planner" agent delegates sub-tasks to specialist worker agents — the most common multi-agent pattern in 2026 production systems.
- 🧭AutonomyHuman in the loop
A workflow pattern where the agent pauses for human approval at one or more checkpoints before continuing.
- 🧭AutonomySemi-autonomous agent
An agent that plans and executes most steps unsupervised but pauses for approval before anything irreversible.
- 🧭AutonomySupervisor agent
In hierarchical multi-agent systems, the top-level agent that delegates work to specialist sub-agents, monitors progress, handles failures, and aggregates results.
- 🧭AutonomySwarm intelligence
A multi-agent pattern where many similar agents collaborate without a central supervisor — inspired by ant colonies and bee swarms, used for parallel exploration and consensus.