Agent is a pretty good word. It implies action and delegation.
Lots of other options are in common use, all with their own connotations.
assistant, bot, helper, worker, entity, employee, representative, copilot, delegate
The words people choose in other languages make those possibilities easier to see, and sometimes funny.
A pilgrim's agent could be an envoy
The 2027 Nashik Kumbh Mela project in India calls its personal AI an envoy. Its examples have the system book lodging, find food, and guide a pilgrim through a crowded festival by voice.
I really like the word Envoy, like a messenger sent on your behalf. It shows a specific relationship to the user.
In Portuguese, an agent sounds like “we”
The Portuguese word for agent sounds like an everyday phrase for we. In writing, one space separates the two.
The accidental echo of we is fitting now that the software is supposed to act with us, or for us.
Representative and Intermediary
Arabic sometimes uses a word similar to representative, someone entrusted to handle another person's affairs.
Taiwanese sometimes places its word for representative beside the English loan for agent.
The choice is sometimes argued out in public. In a report on agentic AI, Turkey's privacy regulator considered alternatives and settled on AI intermediary for its own text.
Chinese has different names based on whether it acts for you or on its own
Chinese writing splits these into 2 common phrases: a proxy acting for someone, or an intelligent entity acting on its own. Stanford's DigiChina researchers found both in current use. Researchers were using the term intelligent entity for factory decision software in 2000.
“Non-secret agents” is a real AI event title
An Israeli technology association used the title for a session about business AI.
A Turkish legal paper says the Turkish word for agent is more often understood as spy than representative in everyday use. Duden lists the spy sense first for German. Neither shows how AI users hear the word, but the older association is still available for a joke.
Words are delightful
When a name perfectly sets expectations it makes the whole experience feel more polished and cohesive.
Agent is great but very one-size-fits-all. Sometimes that's what we need, it says flexible capabilities and no pre-existing mission.
Envoy gives the AI a mission, representative tells you whose interests it serves, intelligent entity suggests it could choose its own next step.
Nudge those first impressions.