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I've never heard anyone speak of "async agents". Autonomous agents, yes. Async? No. Sounds like a information bubble, if you ask me. A quick google trends lookup validates this: https://trends.google.com/explore?q=async%2520agents%2Cauton...

And I agree, "async agents" makes little sense

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Here's Stripe using the term today - https://x.com/stevekaliski/status/2021034048945070360?s=20

And here's Google using the term to describe Jules - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44813854

So fairly large players are using “async agent” to mean something specific, which seems enough to warrant defining it. It also makes sense that it’s far less common than “autonomous agent”, since “async” is mostly used by technical folks, which is a much smaller audience. I’m definitely in that sf/swe/tech/startup information bubble, but that's where this stuff is taking off.

Sometimes senior staff misunderstand / misread a buzz word and, in their rush to make sure that everyone knows they are down with the kids, start saying "async agent" instead of "autonomous agent" and everyone just goes with it.

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