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ELi5 : AI Workflows vs AI Agents, Explained with LEGOs

Shloka on January 23, 2026

Ever dumped a pile of LEGOs on the floor? Yes? Well then, you are already a step closer to understanding the difference between AI workflows and ...
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Coding Panel

Love the LEGO analogy, Shloka! 🧱 Workflows as manuals and agents as free-builds makes it so clear why hybrid “agentic workflows” are the sweet spot—predictable where we need it, flexible where it counts. Definitely a helpful mental model for building real-world AI systems! 🚀

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Shloka

Thank you so much

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👾 FrancisTRDev 👾

Hey Shloka. Hope you are well!

Great illustration on AI Agents vs. AI Workflows using Legos! This is well written for me to understand the difference between the two. My hope is that I get to experience on using both Agents and Workflows this year since I am learning on AI engineering for my Full-stack development journey.

Overall, well written post! Great job :D

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Shloka

Hey, Francis! Thank you so much! I am glad that it was of help. I will probably put up some code / blog that goes over ReAct and just a small demo of the theory that I talked about so that it's not just all talk but also action.

In the meanwhile, I found IBM Technologies videos, mixed with your favorite LLM application, some more YouTube videos and reddit to be a good source.

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Santhosh Balasa

Lucky Sam xD

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Shloka

Hahaha! Yeah. Imaginary Sam.

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Krupa Shah

This was so cool to read, Shloka! Also love how you showed that more tools ≠ an agent. Super well written!

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Shloka

Thank you so so much. Krupa!

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Avinash Zala

This LEGO analogy is spot on. Workflows = instruction manuals, agents = “figure it out” mode. The hybrid takeaway is the real win though - manuals where you can, free-build where you must.

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Shloka

Glad you liked it

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Jess Lee

Fun analogy!

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Shloka

Thank you so so much! <3

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Maame Afua A. P. Fordjour

Whenever I see an “explain like I’m 5” post, I’m always there because reading this article has made me understand the differences between Ai workflows & agents in less than 10 mins. Thank you for sharing this! :)

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Shloka

My thoughts exactly! Thank you so much. I am so happy it added some value

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leob

Excellent explanation - learned something today!

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Shloka

thank you

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Jane Mayfield

Great explanation — clear, original, and easy to understand. Thanks!

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Shloka

Thank you so much, I am glad you liked it!

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Lokesh Savdekar

Well, Explained shloka..

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Shloka

Thank you so much! <3

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Giorgi Kobaidze

I'm pretty sure I'd understand the concept even if I was 5 years old and that's a compliment of the highest order. You should seriously consider writing a book called "AI for Kids" or something like that. 😄

BTW, the "Rolling Credits" bit was really creative. Absolutely deserved that top-7-of-the-week spot!

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Shloka

Man, would really have to use a more kid friendly language for that! :')

But thank you so much. <3

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kxbnb • Edited

One thing I keep running into: when you give agents autonomy, you also need guardrails. The agent might build a jail instead of a cabin. How do you handle permission boundaries in your agent setups?

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Shloka

I believe, since the models most of us use are external, I think step 1 is to treat it like a black box. And step 2 is to keep experimenting with the prompt. But I would love to hear your thoughts on this.