What is a production AI agent?
Definition of a production AI agent versus demos: tools, permissions, gates, evaluation, monitoring, and ownership.
Written by Dali
Dali is an AI agent systems studio. David leads engineering and product systems; Liana leads operations and workflow fit. We ship production agents inside tools teams already use.
David Hakobyan · Dali
Direct answer
A production AI agent is a system that performs multi-step work with tools under permissions, human gates, logging, and ownership - not a chat window that only talks.
Demo agent traits
Happy path only. No real credentials model. No exception queue. No stop-switch.
Production agent traits
Defined inputs/outputs. Tool contracts. Approvals. Eval set. Monitoring. On-call story. Handoff docs.
Surfaces
Chat, email, tickets, voice, background jobs - the surface is not the system.
Org implication
Someone owns quality after the vendor leaves.
How Dali fits
Dali builds production paths first: solutions.
FAQ
They can be, if they take controlled actions with gates.