HK Trade Development Council (HKTDC) held a webinar
related to AI agents and named “The Ultimate Guide to AI Selection for SMEs:
Choosing the Right Tools Makes Effectiveness” (中小企挑選AI終極指南 揀啱工具事半功倍) on
31st July 2026. The guest speaker was Ms. Rannes Man (Hong Kong AI-Solve
Academy/香港AI培訓學院創辦人) and
she shared her experience in using AI agents and real application cases for
SMEs.
Firstly, Ms. Rannes Man compared LLM and AI agents to the
difference between a consultant and an employee. From answering to doing! AI agent
is equal to brain plus hands plus memory and self-loop.
The core different between LLM and AI agent was
summarized in table based on 5 dimensions including Capability, Tool Usage, Memory,
Initiative and Error Handling.
And then Ms. Man briefed how AI agent works that has five
steps and they are “Receive Goal”, “Plan & Decompose”, “Act with Tools”, “Check
Results” and “Deliver”.
After that she introduced four types of AI agent. The
first type is “Universal Cloud Platforms” such as Manus and Genspark. Its pros
are easy to use and powerful but it has privacy concern and cost scale with
usage.
The second type is “Desktop/Local Vendor Tools” that has
better privacy concern and vendors stable but it depends on vendor ecosystem
and limited customization.
The third type is “Open-Source/Self-Built Frameworks”
such as Openclaw, Hermes and Custom Build. It has very high privacy control and
long-term cost saving, as well as deep customization. Its tradeoff is high
technical skill required and no official support.
The last type is “Embedded/Vertical Type” like Excel
Agent, n8n and Codex. It is easier to adopt through adding AI inside trusted
tools. But scope is narrow and tool-bound limitations.
Finally, Ms. Rannes Man introduced how SMEs choose
different types of AI agents. It separated into three branches including “Fast/Try/No
Tech”, “Privacy-focused” and “Complex logic”.
Ms. Man also demonstrated her AI agent team (multi-Agent).
She employed 8 agents in her company. Then she demonstrated some cases to us.
Lastly, she gave some tips for SMEs starting AI agents that
pick one daily repetitive task, select an Agent type and then start small with
approval gate.
The Q&A session performed at the end.
