Agents

Agents are your AI-powered assistants that work autonomously to complete tasks for you. Think of an agent as a specialized team member that handles a specific area of work—like a marketing assistant, a data analyst, or a customer research specialist.

What are Agents?

An agent is a named AI assistant that you create to handle repetitive or complex tasks. Each agent has a specific role (given descriptive names like "Marketing Assistant"), contains actions (can have multiple actions that perform related tasks), works independently once configured and activated, and belongs to your workspace.

Creating an Agent

Creating a new agent is simple. Describe what you need—for example: "Social media manager that posts and replies" or "Weekly sales report generator". UpdateMate automatically generates an appropriate name (like "Marketing Assistant" or "Sales Reporter") based on your description. When you create an agent, you'll also set up its first action using the chat interface.

New agents start in paused state. You'll activate them once everything is configured.

Agent Structure

Agents are containers that organize related actions. An agent can have many actions, each performing a specific task. Group related actions under the same agent (e.g., all marketing tasks under "Marketing Assistant"). This structure helps you manage and find your automations easily.

Managing Agents

Agents can be in one of two states: active (enabled and will execute actions according to their schedules) or paused (temporarily disabled and won't run any actions). Both the agent AND its actions must be active for them to run. If an agent is paused, none of its actions will execute, regardless of their individual states.

You can pause an agent when you need to temporarily stop all its work, or activate it when you're ready for it to start running again.

Best Practices

Give clear descriptions when creating an agent—be specific about what you want it to do. Create separate agents for different types of work (e.g., one for marketing, one for sales reporting). Put actions that work together under the same agent. Check your agents periodically to ensure they're producing the results you need.

What Agents Can Do

Agents are versatile and can handle a wide variety of tasks: generate reports, monitor data, process information, create documents, and integrate with tools through actions.

Agent Naming

When you create an agent, UpdateMate automatically generates a name based on your description. The system creates job-title style names in Title Case (2–4 words), such as "Marketing Assistant", "CRM Manager", "Sales Reporter", or "Customer Insights Analyst". These names are designed to be clear and professional.

Next Steps

Once you've created an agent, set up actions using the chat interface, activate the agent by changing it from paused to active, schedule actions, review logs, and check documents.

Ready to create your first agent? Start by describing what you need, and UpdateMate will help you set everything up. Want to learn more? Check out our How to Build Agents guide.