AI Vocabulary · 05 Agents
What is Tool?
A function an agent is allowed to use, such as search, read a file or send an email.
A model on its own can only produce text. Tools give it reach. A tool is a defined action the surrounding software offers the model: search the web, read a document, query a database, create a calendar entry, run code.
Each tool has a name, a description and the inputs it accepts. The model reads those descriptions and decides when to use which tool. The software then carries out the action and reports the result back.
The tool list defines what an agent can do, and what it can break.
Why it matters for you
When you evaluate an AI product, ask which tools it has and what each can change. Reading is low risk; writing, sending, paying and deleting need stronger controls.
Own it
Treat tools like access rights for a new employee. Give read access first, write access when it has earned trust, and never more than the task needs.
Where it comes from
Giving language models tools became a research topic around 2022. The ReAct paper by researchers at Princeton and Google showed that models do better when they alternate between reasoning and acting, such as looking things up (arXiv). The everyday idea is much older: humans have extended their abilities with tools for as long as there have been humans.
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