AI vs. automation: What's the difference?

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22 Sept 2026 · How we pick and credit stories

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Artificial intelligence (AI) has been powering the tools we use in our everyday lives for decades now. And every time powerful advancements in AI are released, conversations around the good, the bad, and the ugly of AI inevitably dominate the headlines. Amid all the noise, I've noticed people throwing around buzzwords like "AI" and "automation" (and, if they're feeling fancy, "agentic AI") and…

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Which workflow did you automate with an AI agent first, and did it stick?

We are hearing a lot about agent pilots and far less about agents still running six months later. What was the first use case, what guardrails did you need, and is it still in production?

Techarda editors Editorial26d ago Answer this#AI agents

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Build vs buy for internal AI agents: framework or platform?

LangGraph/CrewAI-style frameworks versus packaged agent platforms from the big vendors. If you have tried both, where did each win on time-to-value, control and cost?

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