Learn how agents and topics differ conceptually and how the terms intent, topic and agent are separated from each other.
Intent
An intent is the overarching intention of the user. This overarching intention is a delimited and stand-alone unit that - figuratively speaking - claims a certain space for itself. A large number of such spaces stand side by side and the artificial intelligence recognizes which request belongs where. This recognition can be based on the defined typical user requests. Both topics and agents are subtypes of intents. The difference lies in how the response is created
Agents
Agents are described in detail in this article. In principle, and in contrast to topics, agents are also a subcategory of intents. Unlike topics, however, they use conversational AI (a subcategory of generative AI) to generate dynamic, human-like responses. There are also three different forms of agents: 1) the standard AI agent, 2) the agents, 3) the AI product advisor.
The standard AI agent has no specialty, but always responds if no other specialized agent or a defined topic covers the intent.
The agents are specialists in an area and are mainly service-oriented, i.e. they try to solve problems, provide information or assist in other ways.
AI product consultants are agents who specialize in sales. They provide comprehensive advice on a product category and aim to initiate a purchase.
Topics
Topics are a sub-category of intents that use editorial content and play out fixed, always identical responses to incoming queries. They are not specialists in an area like the agents, they answer what was previously written in the editorial response. . The creation and editing of response content is described in detail in this help center article. The advantages are that editorial control over the content is maintained. Topics provide static answers without using generative AI.