Tool Use (AI)

Tool use refers to an AI model's ability to call external tools — search engines, calculators, code interpreters, APIs, databases — to assist with tasks rather than relying solely on its internal knowledge. Tool use dramatically extends what AI can do: a model without tool use can only answer based on its training data; a model with tool use can search the web for current information, run code to do calculations, or query a database for specific records. Most capable AI agents have tool use — it's what allows them to take actions in the world rather than just generating text.