What's up with all these AI Agents?

I am surfing the web trying to learn more about AI and every article talks about AI Agents.

Can anyone in this forum help me understand what an AI Agent is and why they are gaining so much popularity?

I read that AI Agents are software programmes that perform tasks autonomously by observing and interacting with the envirnment (similar to the way humans behave). It seems like these AI Agents are able to work with minimal human input and everybody says that they are the next era of AI.

Can anyone please point me to some good articles about what AI Agents do, type of AI Agents and more importantly where we can currently find AI Agents in the real worlds?

Thanks