The a16z Show · Friday, October 2, 2026
Seema Amble outlines four types of AI agents: retrieval agents (like chatbots) that fetch information, process agents that execute tasks based on policies, policy agents that apply judgment to complex situations, and principal agents that can negotiate or make strategic decisions. She notes that most incumbents started with retrieval agents and are slowly moving towards process and policy capabilities.
“effectively had a chat bot that sat on top of the system record, which you could chat with to retrieve information, maybe do some analytics. And that really was in that first bucket of what the retrieval agent is.”
“The second step in the agent sequence is the process agent. So that process agent may be able to pull through an approval of credit and say, okay, based on our policy handbook, it was out from these dates. Therefore, we say you are entitled to money and it can just apply the bill and just do process. There's no judgment involved.”
“And then the last stage, which is the principal agent, you're actually weighing, okay, should we offer more compensation? Because that was a pretty terrible outage, and we want to reserve the relationship, and it's worth doing more beyond even what a process or”