AI agents are having a 'ChatGPT moment' as investors look for what's next after chatbots

Earlier this year, financial services company Klarna said its artificial intelligence agent, powered by OpenAI, had taken over two-thirds of customer chats and was doing work equivalent to that of 700 full-time agents. That was after just one month of use.

Alexander Kvamme, CEO of customer engagement startup Echo AI, told CNBC that Klarna's announcement in February may have been the first sign of AI agents "having their ChatGPT moment." 

OpenAI released the ChatGPT chatbot to the public in late 2022, giving the public a taste of how new generative AI chatbots could provide much more thorough, creative and conversational answers to web queries compared with traditional search, which is how consumers sought online information for the prior 25 years. Google, Microsoft and others followed with rival products.

The industry quickly moved past text responses and into AI-generated photos and videos. Now comes the rise of AI agents.

Rather than just providing answers — the realm of chatbots and image generators — agents are built for productivity and to complete tasks. They're AI tools that are able to make decisions, for better or worse, "without a human in the loop," Kvamme said. 

Grace Isford, a partner at venture firm Lux Capital, said there's been a "dramatic increase" in interest among tech investors when it comes to startups focused on building AI agents. They've collectively raised hundreds of millions of dollars and seen their valuations climb alongside the broader generative AI market.

Generative AI exploded in 2023, with $29.1 billion invested across nearly 700 deals, a more than 260% increase in deal value from a year earlier, according to PitchBook. Meanwhile, the non-AI investing landscape has been in an extended lull for