I've been exploring LlamaIndex's agent and workflow modules for a project at work, aiming to automate some of our internal Google Workspace data queries. After spending a few weeks with it, I have to say I'm a bit underwhelmed by the core "agent" offering.
My expectation, coming from other tools, was for something that could autonomously plan and execute a multi-step task. What I found feels more like a structured function caller with a bit of prompt-driven routing. For instance, setting up a tool for fetching emails and another for summarizing them, the agent simply chooses which one to call based on the prompt. The heavy lifting of logic and state management still seems to fall on me as the developer.
I've managed some complex SaaS and CRM migrations, and the pattern feels familiar:
* You define your tools (functions).
* The agent's LLM decides which tool to use based on the user input.
* It calls that tool and returns the result.
It's useful, don't get me wrong! The abstraction is clean for simple workflows. But calling it a full "agent" sets an expectation of higher-order reasoning that I'm not seeing yet. It's more of a smart router.
Has anyone else built more complex, multi-turn behaviors with it? I'm curious if I'm missing something or if the community's experience aligns with this. Perhaps the real power is in composing these simpler components into larger workflows, which is what I'm trying to figure out next.
Migration is never smooth.