AI Glossary
What is Tool Use?
Overview
Tool use is the ability of an AI system to call external tools such as search, code execution, databases, calculators, or business APIs. It matters because many real tasks require current data or side effects that a language model cannot provide from weights alone.
Why it matters
Tool use is a core capability for agents that need to inspect, decide, and act across software environments.
Where it appears in AI research
- Agent benchmarks
- Coding assistant workflows
- Enterprise AI automation
- Function calling and MCP integrations
Related terms
Related DeepSignal articles
arXiv cs.CL·Leyao Wang, Yanan He, Peng Chen, Asaf Yehudai, Yixin Liu, Rex Ying, Michal Shmueli-Scheuer, Arman Cohan
5/20/2026 FeaturedOriginal
Time to REFLECT: Can We Trust Judges for Evidence-based Research Agents?
AI Summary
The REFLECT benchmark reveals that current LLM judges are unreliable, achieving below 55% accuracy in evaluating reasoning and evidence use, highlighting the need for improved evaluation methods for deep research agents.
