i just imagine it as the swap between "human watching agent while it runs"

vs "agent runs for a long time, tells the user over human interfaces when its done" eg. sends a slack. or something like gemini deep research.

an extension would be that they are triggered by events and complete autonomously with only human interfaces when it gets stuck.

theres a bit of a quality difference rather than exactly functionally, in that the agent mostly doesnt need human interaction beyond a starting prompt, and a notification of completion or stuckness. even if im not blocking on a result, it cant immediately need babying or i cant actually leave it alone