AI assistants, agent builders, workflow tools and agent workspaces: which fits the job.
A plain comparison by what each does. Product types, not brands.
| AI assistant | Agent builder | Workflow tool | Lua | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who does the steps | You, with drafts | The workflow, once someone builds it | The workflow, on a fixed path | Agent teams, coordinated by a supervisor agent |
| Where the work lives | In your chat history | In the tools it connects | In the tool’s run log | In an app your team can open |
| See each step | Partly | Logs for builders | Logs for builders | Every step, in plain words |
| Approval before it sends | You copy and paste | If you build it | If you build it | Built in, with rules |
| Handles an unusual case | Yes, with you | If the builder foresaw it | No | Yes, and asks a person when unsure |
| Cost visibility | Per seat | Per run | Per task | Per reply and per team |
| Best fit | Help with your own work | A repeatable automation with known rules | Moving data between tools | A team doing a function’s work around a number |
Use the right one for the job.
AI assistant
Your own work: a draft, a summary, a question. You stay in the loop on every step, because you are the loop.
Agent builder
One automation with known rules that someone technical can build and maintain. It does the same thing every time.
Workflow tool
Moving data between tools when a form is filled or a record changes. Fast to set up, and it breaks on the first unusual case.
Lua
A team doing a function’s work around a number, with an app your people open, steps anyone can read and a person approving what matters.
An assistant helps you with the work, and Lua’s agent teams actually do it.
You ask and it answers.
You still move the work along yourself, each person in their own chat, and nothing is shared, scheduled or repeatable.
You give them the job and they do the steps.
They work across your tools on a schedule, and the team sees the work and approves what matters in the app it gets.
You dig the answer out of a long thread.
You cannot tell if it is doing anything until the reply turns up, you cannot see the steps, the sources or the cost, and the mistakes stay in the thread too.
You watch the work happen in an app.
Every step, source and cost is in the open, you comment and approve in the same place, and a comment becomes a rule the whole team follows.
An assistant helps you with the work, and Lua’s agent teams actually do it.
Built so the agents last and you stay in charge.
Never locked in
Pick the model provider for each agent and switch when a better one ships.
You own your agents
Their source, their rules and what they learn stay yours. Pull them at any time.
People and agents on one job
Comments, approvals and the agents’ steps sit on the same item, in one app.
Works on its own
On a schedule, in WhatsApp, Slack, Teams, email and your CRM, with the team watching.
In control
Spend limits per team, approvals before anything that matters, and every source shown.
Gets better with use
A comment becomes a rule, and the team needs you a little less each week.