Understand the trip planning agent

- What's exciting about building an AI agent with GPT-5 is that you can build an agent that doesn't just talk. It takes action. In the next few minutes, I'm going to show you how GPT-5, when coupled with the OpenAI Agents SDK, can write, call tools, and follow through on a real task, all without you babysitting it. Before we dive in, let's talk about what an AI agent really is. Think of it as more than just a chatbot or a model answering questions. An AI agent is like a teammate that can reason, make decisions, and take action on your behalf. It doesn't just generate text. It can connect with tools, call APIs, look up information, or even kickoff workflows. The power of an agent comes from combining intelligence with action. And here's the big picture. In the not so distant future, your work colleague won't just be a human, it will be a team of agents working alongside you. This is the agent we'll build together in this course. It's a trip planning agent to help me plan my next vacation. What makes this agent super helpful is that it uses the current weather forecast as a part of its planning. I'm giving it a simple request. Help me plan my trip to Atlanta and let me know what to pack based on current weather conditions. It decides which tools to call in what order, runs each step, and provides tailored advice based on a realtime weather report. That's not just text generation. That's GPT-5 acting like a travel agent with access to realtime weather reports. So what makes this possible? Three things GPT-5 brings to the table, reasoning, tool calling, and steerability. Reasoning is how it decides the best next step in a multi-part task. Tool calling is how it executes those steps, like running code, fetching data, or formatting results. And steerability is how we shape its tone, depth, and output style. Nudge GPT-5 in the right direction, and it can handle everything from planning to execution all in one workflow. Up next, we're building your first GPT-5 agent with tool calling, and you'll see it come to life in minutes. Let's dive in.