Agent skills

What is an agent skill?

Agent skills are packaged instructions and resources, such as reference files and scripts, that an AI agent can load when a task calls for them. Anthropic introduced the format and later published it as an open standard. The agent sees a short description of each skill and reads the rest when a request matches. A connected tool lets an agent do something, such as update a record. A skill tells it how your team wants a kind of work done.

Why it matters to a revenue leader

Skills are how a team's way of working gets written down for AI. A skill can hold your price book or proposal format, so every seller's agent works to the same standard. Anthropic's documentation warns that a skill from an untrusted source can direct an agent to act outside its stated purpose, and advises using skills only from trusted sources and auditing any others before use. Someone on the revenue team should own which skills are approved and keep them current as pricing and offers change.

A PE-backed fire protection platform with three acquired branches writes one skill that holds the shared price book and the proposal format for inspection agreements. Sellers in all three branches use it when their AI drafts a renewal proposal. When pricing changes in January, RevOps updates the one skill instead of sending a new template to 22 sellers.