Welcome to the first episode of season six of the Azure Essentials Show series: Armchair Architects. Host David Blank-Edelman is joined as always by Uli Homann CVP at Microsoft, and Eric Charran (@mougue)  , Executive Director and at Intuit for the first episode in a season dedicated to exploring AI agents from a cloud solution architect’s perspective. This episode sets the stage by defining what AI agents are, distinguishing them from chatbots, and discussing their growing importance in today’s technology landscape. 

Resources
- Agent Factory: Designing the open agentic web stack https://azure.microsoft.com/blog/agent-factory-designing-the-open-agentic-web-stack/
- Azure Architecture Center
https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/architecture 
- AI architecture design
https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/architecture/ai-ml 
- Get started with AI agent development on Azure
https://learn.microsoft.com/training/modules/ai-agent-fundamentals 

Related Episodes
- Watch more episodes of Armchair Architects
https://aka.ms/ArmchairArchitects
- Watch more episodes of the Azure Essentials Show
https://aka.ms/AzureEssentialsShow 

Connect
- David Blank-Edelman https://www.linkedin.com/in/dnblankedelman/ 
- Uli Homann https://www.linkedin.com/in/ulrichhomann/ 
- Eric Charran https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericcharran/

Chapters
0:00 Good news!
0:47 Welcome architects
2:01 What is an agent?
2:43 Empowered to act
4:03 Do agents require LLMs?
5:45 How is an agent different from a chatbot?
6:06 Architectural layers of an agent 
7:45 Agents 101
11:35 Handling anomalies
14:42 Where do agents plug in?
16:38 Episode 2: Designing effective AI agents

Armchair Architects: Defining AI Agents and Their Core Traits