AI For Christians · AI Agents Series · Part 1 of 4
What Is an AI Agent?
A simple, Christian guide to agentic AI. Learn what an AI agent is, how it actually works, and how to use it as a tool while you stay led by the Holy Spirit.
Plain and Simple
What Is an AI Agent?
Two ways to say it. Start with the simple one.
An AI agent is a computer program that acts like a helpful assistant. It gathers information, figures out what to do next, and takes steps to reach a goal you set. Think of it as a virtual errand-runner that can handle multi-step tasks, with you reviewing the important steps.
An AI agent is software built around a large language model, given instructions, and connected to some of these: knowledge sources, connectors and tools, memory, triggers (like a schedule), and other agents it can work with. With those parts it can plan, gather information, and work toward a goal you set, for a person or an organization.
Before You Hire Your AI Crew
Start With the Workflow, Not the Tool
Before you pick any agent, write down the job the way you would explain it to a new volunteer:
- The steps: what happens first, next, and last.
- The outcome: what a finished, good result looks like.
- The decision points: where someone has to choose or approve.
- The rules: what the agent must always do and must never do.
A written workflow works with any tool. If a tool changes or shuts down, you hand the same workflow to a new agent. We teach this in Building Your AI Ark.
From Chatbots to Action Heroes
Chatbot, Advisor Agent, or Action Agent?
A chatbot is something you just talk to, and it answers. An agent goes further. Some agents research and advise. Others also take actions for you. Here is how to tell them apart.
| Feature | Chatbot | Advisor agent | Action agent |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it does | Answers what you ask | Researches, collects information, and advises you on it | Researches and advises, and also does the work |
| What it can reach | The conversation | Sources and apps you connect so it can read them, like Google Drive, Notion, or ClickUp | Connected apps, a browser, or your computer, with permission to make changes |
| Takes actions outside the chat? | No | No. It does not send, book, buy, or change things | Yes. It can send, update, book, or post, within the access you give it |
| Memory | The current chat | Notes and saved memory, if it is set up to keep and read them | Notes and saved memory, if it is set up to keep and read them |
| Example | Asking a question and getting an answer | A research agent that reads your project board and drafts a recommendation | A cloud operations, browser-doer, local, or publishing agent |
The quick test: Does it only answer? That is a chatbot. Does it research, gather from your sources, and advise without acting? That is an advisor agent. Can it act in other systems for you? That is an action agent, and it needs clear permissions and approvals. See all seven kinds on Types of AI Agents.
How AI Agents Actually Work
The 7 Superpowers of an Agent
To turn a plain AI model into an agent, builders give it some or all of these seven parts.
A large language model
The engine that reads, writes, and reasons. Agents use it to plan: “First I gather the facts, then I draft, then I check my work.”
Instructions
Its role, its limits, and what a good result looks like. Clear, written instructions are what make an agent consistent.
Knowledge sources
Documents and sources it can look things up in, like your handbook, your notes, or a folder of past work.
Connectors and tools
Approved access to apps and tools: email, calendar, a web browser, files, or a project board. This is what lets it reach beyond the chat.
Memory
One of the biggest things that makes an agent useful. Agents remember by writing things down, in saved memory, notes, and knowledge bases, and reading them back before the next task.
Triggers
A schedule or event that starts the work without you, like every Monday at 7 a.m. or when a new form comes in.
Teamwork
The ability to work with other agents: form a team, talk to each other, plan together, divide the work, and hand off results. A person still approves the important steps. See Agent Teams.
Not every agent has all seven. What changes from one type of agent to the next is which parts it has and how much it is allowed to reach.
The Huddle in the real world: Google’s open Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol, announced in April 2025, lets AI agents communicate with each other, securely exchange information, and coordinate actions (Google Developers Blog). Anthropic’s Research feature uses a lead agent that plans the research and creates subagents to search in parallel, then pulls their findings together (Anthropic Engineering). See Connected Agent Crews.
The Journal, Up Close
How AI Agents Remember
Memory is one of the biggest things that makes an agent useful, and one of the biggest reasons agents get frustrating when it is missing. Here is how it works.
What you said in this chat
The agent can see the current conversation. In long chats the older parts fade, and a new chat often starts fresh. History alone is not a reliable memory.
What it writes down
Good agents keep notes: your preferences, decisions, and where each project stands. They read those notes back before the next task. That is how they remember you from one day to the next.
What you give it to read
Documents and sources you connect, like your church handbook or a project folder. The agent looks things up there instead of guessing.
The key: write it down, read it back
An agent remembers what it writes down and reads back. If it does not keep notes, or does not read them, it has no memory of what happened. That is why the same agent can feel brilliant one day and forgetful the next.
- Turn on memory or a notes file, and tell the agent to keep notes on decisions, preferences, and progress.
- Tell it to read its notes before each task.
- When you correct it, have it write the correction into its notes or instructions. It does not automatically absorb every correction unless it writes it down.
Step by Step
The “ReAct” Loop
This is how an agent solves a problem, one step at a time. It repeats the loop until the job is done or it needs you. The loop catches many mistakes, but not all of them, so an agent can still be confidently wrong. It should stop and ask you when it hits something it is not allowed to do or a decision that is yours to make.
The Huddle, Up Close
Boss and Workers: Agent Teams
Sometimes a job is too big for one agent. So builders use a team.
The boss agent
Makes the plan, hands out the jobs, and checks the work.
Specialist agents
Each does one job well: a writer, a coder, a designer, a researcher.
A shared place and checkpoints
Agents pass work through a shared place, like a Google Doc or a task board. A person approves at the checkpoints, before anything is published, sent, paid, or deleted. See Connected Agent Crews.
This is a picture we already know. The body has many members with different gifts, working for one purpose. Agent teams copy that design, but they are still tools. The gifts of the Spirit belong to people.
Real Examples, 2026
AI Agents You Can Try Today
A few well-known agents, so the idea isn’t just theory. Start small and review everything they do.
ChatGPT Work
OpenAI retired its standalone “ChatGPT agent” mode. Longer, multi-step tasks and finished deliverables now run in ChatGPT Work on paid plans. OpenAI help center
Perplexity Comet
Perplexity’s Comet is a web browser with a built-in assistant that can read, summarize, and act on the page you’re on. It’s free to download for Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android; heavier agent tasks may need a paid plan or credits. Try Perplexity.
Affiliate link: AFC may earn a commission at no cost to you.
Genspark Super Agent
Genspark describes Super Agent as an autonomous assistant that breaks your request into steps, chooses tools, and carries the work to a finished result, like a report, a slide deck, or research. Try Genspark.
Affiliate link: AFC may earn a commission at no cost to you.
Hark
A personal AI agent on web, iOS, and Android that works with the accounts you connect, keeps notes, and builds and runs tasks for you. One of the agents we use at AFC.
Manus
An autonomous task agent. We use it as a worker bee for short, one-off projects.
See every agent we actually use in the AFC AI Toolbelt.
Permissions and Approvals
You Hold the Keys
Give an agent only the access the job needs, and decide ahead of time where it must stop and ask you: before it sends, publishes, pays, books, or deletes anything. Advisor agents need little access. Action agents need more care.
For setting permissions and approvals step by step, see Lesson 3 of Building Your AI Ark, “Raising Your AI Agent Like a Child” (Module 2, coming soon).
Stewardship
Why This Matters for the Church
AI is no longer just a passive chatbot waiting for a prompt. It is becoming “agentic AI”: systems that can research, reason through steps, and carry out multi-step work, with a person approving the important steps.
That shift from “tool” to “digital workforce” is a real stewardship opportunity. Agents can take on the routine administration that often chokes ministry, freeing leaders for discipleship and prayer. It also brings real risks, spiritual, psychological, and ethical, that call for sharp discernment.
Responsibility stays with people. The person who sets up an agent and approves its work is accountable for what it does.
The question isn’t whether Christians should engage with this technology. It’s how we steward it wisely: staying dependent on the Holy Spirit first, and using these tools with integrity, wisdom, and love to equip believers and promote the Kingdom.
“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”James 1:5 (KJV)
Continue the Series
Next: Clear Up the Myths
Now that you know what an agent is, see what it isn’t. Part 2 separates hype and fear from the truth.
Read Part 2: Myths of AI Agents
Spirit-led, AI-assisted. Want the music side of AFC too? Listen to the I’m Not Human album on Bandcamp.
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