Autonomous Agent
An autonomous agent is an AI agent that completes a task end to end without a person approving each step, shifting human oversight from every action to reviewing outcomes.
Autonomy sits on a spectrum. With a copilot, a human reviews every output before anything happens (human-in-the-loop). A supervised agent acts while a person monitors and can step in (human-on-the-loop). An autonomous agent runs end to end and is audited after the fact.
Higher autonomy raises throughput but also the need for governance, clear boundaries, and reliable context, which is why many teams grant autonomy gradually, starting with low-risk, high-volume tasks.
Frequently Asked Questions
A copilot suggests output that a person reviews and executes. An autonomous agent decides and acts on its own, with people reviewing results rather than each step.