AI Agent Terms Compared

Short, sourced "X vs Y" guides for metrics and concepts that teams building production AI agents often mix up.

AI Agent Memory vs Context Window: What Is the Difference?
The context window is what the model sees right now; memory is what persists between turns and sessions. How each one fails and why they get confused.
Retries vs Fallbacks for AI Agents: When to Use Each
Retries repeat the same call; fallbacks switch to a different path. How to use each without causing retry storms or silent quality drops.
AI Agent vs Chatbot: How Their Failures Differ
A chatbot fails by saying something wrong; an agent fails by doing something wrong. How scope, tools, and autonomy change the failure modes.
Containment Rate vs Resolution Rate for AI Support Agents
Containment rate counts conversations the bot kept; resolution rate counts problems actually solved. How they diverge, and which one to report.
Does Temperature 0 Make LLM Output Deterministic?
Temperature 0 makes output more repeatable, not guaranteed identical. Why agents still give different answers to the same input, and what to do.
AI Guardrails vs Evals: What Each One Catches
Evals test an agent before release; guardrails constrain it while it runs. What each catches, where each fails, and why you need both.
Human-in-the-Loop vs Human-on-the-Loop for AI Agents
In-the-loop means a person approves each action; on-the-loop means a person supervises and can intervene. Which fits which risk level.
Prompt Injection vs Jailbreak: Differences for AI Agents
Jailbreaks target the model's own safety rules; prompt injection smuggles instructions in through data an agent reads. Why the defenses differ.
RAG vs Fine-Tuning for Reducing AI Hallucinations
RAG supplies facts at question time; fine-tuning changes model behavior. Which reduces hallucination in which case, and how each one still fails.
Single-Agent vs Multi-Agent Systems: Failure Modes Compared
Multi-agent systems add handoffs, shared state and consensus problems that single agents do not have. What new failures to plan for.