Key terms

We keep these three categories apart on purpose, because they solve different problems:

• Agents take a goal and find their own way to reach it — useful when the task is open-ended and the steps aren’t known in advance.
• MCP servers are the connection layer that lets agents use data and tools in companies and systems in a standard way.
• Chatbots answer in conversation — a simpler and often sufficient solution, but not the same thing as an agent.