Artiplane · fashion & luxury

Digital Worker vs agent: who does what

An agent executes a step. A Digital Worker carries a role, its limits and its accountability.

Digital Worker

2026-09-06 · 6 min read

Key takeaways

  • Agents are typed sequences of steps, not chat prompts.
  • A Digital Worker coordinates agents across several systems.
  • Human approval is a step, drawn and colored like the others.

Typed steps

Each agent step declares its kind: an API call to a system service, an AI reasoning step with its model, or a human approval.

That is what makes an agent reviewable: you can read what it will touch before you let it run.

The worker as an alter ego

A Digital Worker maps to a business role — buyer, planner, pricing manager — and holds the agents, workflows and authority of that role.

It can propose an activity list for its agents and for people, but it never approves its own proposal.

Technology, not systems

An agent often spans several systems, so it is classified by the technology it was built on: Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, n8n, SAP BTP or native.

Provenance stays visible, especially for agents imported from market LLMs.

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