What is an AI agent?
An AI agent is an automated assistant powered by a large language model (LLM). Unlike a simple chatbot that only responds to questions, an agent can actively carry out tasks on your behalf - reading data, making decisions, and taking action within your tools.
How does an AI agent work?
Every agent in Cortex has three core components:
Instructions - A plain-English description of what you want the agent to do. This is where you explain the task, the tone of voice, any rules it should follow, and what outcome you're looking for.
Tools - The specific actions the agent is allowed to take. For example, you might give an agent the ability to search for people, read property data, send emails, or post to Slack. An agent can only interact with your data and systems through the tools you explicitly grant it.
A model - The AI brain that powers the agent. Cortex handles model selection for you (more on this in our Choosing a model tier help article), so you just pick a performance level that suits your needs.
What can an agent do?
Agents are extremely flexible. Here are a few examples of what you could build:
An enquiry management agent that handles incoming portal enquiries, checks whether the person is already registered, researches their history, and responds with viewing availability using Street's booking engine.
An applicant re-engagement agent that contacts applicants who haven't been active recently, sends personalised emails with relevant property matches, waits for their reply, and updates their records based on the response.
A local area content agent that searches the web for upcoming events in your area, writes a blog article, publishes it as a draft to your Spectre website, and notifies your marketing team via Slack.
A sales compliance agent that reviews EPCs, proof of ownership, AML, and terms of business, then proactively reaches out to vendors and suppliers to get properties compliant.
A landlord prospector agent that reviews contacts in your database, identifies landlords with properties managed by other agents in your area, and creates a bespoke prospecting plan for each one.
A competitor research agent that identifies competitors you've lost valuations to, researches them online, and generates PDF battle cards for your valuers.
A negotiator training agent that reviews all activity and communication for a negotiator on a monthly basis and creates a personalised training plan based on their individual strengths and weaknesses.
If a task is done by a person sitting at a computer, there's a good chance Cortex can do it.
Agents run in their own environment
It's important to understand that your AI agents run in a self-contained environment, separate from Street and Spectre. They can only interact with your products through the tools you assign to them. This isolation is a deliberate safety measure - even if an agent's instructions are broad, it physically cannot do anything you haven't given it permission to do.
Street is constantly being updated. This can mean that some of these articles become slightly out of date. If you spot something that looks a little bit different to your Street account, please let us know on the live chat so we can get it updated!