Guide

AI Workflows vs AI Agents

Prompt Engineering Guide (DAIR.AI) · promptingguide.ai

A neutral reference explainer to align your team on terminology before the build debate.

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The question it answers

  1. Should I put an AI agent in my product, or is a simple workflow enough?

Read with it

  1. The most-cited engineering post on agents: five workflow patterns and when a true agent is warranted. anthropic.com Guide Building Effective AI Agents Anthropic
  2. OpenAI's distilled deployment lessons: use-case selection, guardrails, and orchestration patterns. openai.com Guide A practical guide to building agents OpenAI
  3. The manifesto that successful agents are mostly well-engineered software with LLM sprinkled at key points. github.com Guide 12-Factor Agents: principles for production LLM software Dex Horthy (HumanLayer)
  4. A working engineer's decision criteria with cost and reliability tradeoffs spelled out. towardsdatascience.com Article A Developer's Guide to Building Scalable AI: Workflows vs Agents Towards Data Science
  5. Short and sharp: if the steps are known in advance, a workflow wins on every axis. redis.io Article AI Agents vs Workflows: When to Use Each Redis
  6. How a regulated enterprise makes the call, useful discipline for any founder. medium.com Article AI agents vs. predefined workflows: practical decision guide Capital One Tech
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