One of Japan's ten largest corporations is choosing technology over people: from now on, artificial intelligence will take over programming tasks. Our Executive Director Stephan Günnemann, Professor of Data Analytics and Machine Learning at the TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology, first explains what an agent is – what it needs. “The most important thing for the agent is that it can act autonomously,” says Günnemann. 
Clear goal-setting is therefore a basic requirement and clearly distinguishes AI agents from AI assistants such as ChatGPT, which provide information but cannot independently plan and execute the steps needed to reach a goal.

If AI agents are able to achieve goals independently and within a very short time, the question arises as to whether they can also replace us humans in other areas, such as law or management. Günnemann does not yet believe that agents will go it alone in this regard: “I believe that it will not be the agent who makes the decision, but rather the human being, with the support, so to speak, of the agent.”

Technologically, Germany and TUM are keeping pace with technological developments in Japan. World-class AI research is being conducted level here, and practical application examples are not far away: the German automotive industry offers relevant use cases right on our doorstep. We remain excited about what comes next!

You can find the original article by Christian Sachsinger here (in German only): https://www.br.de/nachrichten/netzwelt/uebernehmen-ki-agenten-jetzt-die-wirtschaft