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Written by Max Zeshut
Founder at Agentmelt
The ability of an AI agent to invoke external tools—browsers, APIs, calculators, code interpreters, databases—to accomplish tasks beyond text generation. Tool use is what distinguishes agents from chatbots: a sales agent uses CRM tools, a coding agent uses a terminal, and a finance agent queries accounting software. Modern tool use is implemented through structured [[function-calling]] and increasingly through [[model-context-protocol]] for cross-platform compatibility.
An ops agent asked to investigate a payment failure uses tools sequentially: query the database for the failed transaction, call the Stripe API to fetch the underlying error code, search the runbook knowledge base for that error code, and draft a Slack message summarizing the cause and recommended fix. Five tools, four seconds, one structured response—a chatbot without tool use could only restate the question.