The 4 Levels of AI Agents: Why Most Service AIs Still Feel Dumb (Part 1)

TL;DR AI agents in real products fall into 4 levels: LLM wrapper → intent classifier → context-aware → agent loop. Most "AI agents" you meet in production are stuck at level 1 or 2, which is why they feel dumb on top of very smart models. The gap between levels is rarely the model. It's context management and the agent loop. Part 2 covers how to climb the levels — this post is about what the levels are and why most products stall. Last month I tried to cancel an order through a SaaS company...