Agency
Also written: User agency, High agency
The ability to act independently and make choices.
Agency refers to an AI's capacity to act on its own, make decisions, and pursue goals without constant human direction. It's about an AI having a degree of autonomy.
For example, imagine an AI assistant that can not only schedule your meetings but also proactively suggest agenda items based on past meeting outcomes and current project needs. This proactive suggestion and independent action demonstrate agency.
Agency in AI describes the capability of a system to perceive its environment, make independent decisions, and take actions to achieve specific goals. This involves a feedback loop where the AI's actions influence its environment, and its subsequent perceptions inform further decisions. Tradeoffs exist between granting more agency (leading to potentially greater efficiency and novel solutions) and maintaining control (ensuring safety and alignment with human intent).
Discussions around agency are increasing as AI models become more capable of independent action and complex problem-solving. Frontier labs are exploring how to imbue AI with agency responsibly, considering its implications for societal structures and the potential for AI to act autonomously.
- Introducing MentalHealthBenchOpenAI · OpenAI News ·
- Introducing Intelligence AgeOpenAI · OpenAI News ·
- 3 skills you need in the age of AIMicrosoft · Microsoft on YouTube ·
- Ensuring AI use in education leads to opportunityOpenAI · OpenAI News ·
- Exploring model welfareAnthropic · Anthropic Research ·
- Anthropic Claude
- Anthropic's research into 'model welfare' raises questions about the moral status of advanced AI, indirectly touching upon the concept of agency and its potential implications.
- OpenAI ChatGPT
- OpenAI's work touches on agency in the context of societal restructuring and AI's impact on rights, and implicitly in tools like ChatGPT that allow users to act more effectively.
- Autonomy
- While related, autonomy specifically refers to self-governance and fre
- Intelligence
- Intelligence is the ability to learn and solve problems, which can
- Consciousness
- Consciousness is subjective awareness, a state not currently attr
The concept of agency originates from philosophy and social sciences, referring to the capacity of individuals to act independently and make their own free choices. In AI, it's being adapted to describe the functional capabilities of autonomous systems.
Ask ChatGPT to draft an email for a specific purpose, then ask it to refine the tone to be more persuasive. Observe how it takes your initial prompt and independently generates and modifies content to meet your evolving goal.
The Playbook: reusable how-tos, prompts, configs and tips pulled out of the news.
- PromptRole-play a student struggling with math for AI tutor simulationSimulate a student's math struggles and uncertainty for AI tutor evaluation. · 5 min
- TemplateReusable workflow templates for healthcare teamsTeams can create and share templates for common workflows like documentation or prior authorizations. · 15 min
- TemplateTemplate for building an AI tool tailored to your workA structured approach to defining and building a custom AI tool for specific business needs. · 15 min
- TemplateEvals CSV prompt list for agent skillsA CSV file template for listing prompts used in evaluating agent skills. · 20 min
- HeuristicDouble coding agent task completion with docs linksProviding coding agents with a documentation link significantly increases their task completion rate. · 2 min
Questions people ask
- Can AI have true agency like humans?
- Currently, AI agency is functional, meaning they can act autonomously to achieve goals. It does not imply consciousness or subjective experience as understood in humans.
- What is the difference between agency and autonomy in AI?
- Agency is the capacity to act and make choices, while autonomy is a higher level of self-governance and freedom from external control, often implying a deeper level of independent operation.
First seen on Subvolts Apr 24, 2025. Updated Oct 12, 2026. Written by an AI model from the items above and reviewed against them weekly; report an error.