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Building Your First AI Agent with Python: A Beginner's Guide

A developer built a weather assistant AI agent in Python using OpenAI's API and OpenWeatherMap. The agent follows a pattern of perceiving, deciding, and acting, and can answer questions like 'What’s the weather in Paris?' by calling a weather API.

read1 min views52 publishedJul 19, 2026

AI agents are programs that can perceive information, decide what to do, and take actions toward a goal. Unlike a simple chatbot that only responds to prompts, an agent can use tools, follow steps, and adapt its behavior based on context. In this tutorial, you’ll build a small weather assistant agent in Python that can answer questions like “What’s the weather in Paris?” by calling a weather API.

Prerequisites

Before you start, make sure you have:

Install the libraries:

A simple agent usually follows this pattern:

Use the result to generate a final response Set up your project

Create a file named agent.py and load your environment variables:

This function calls OpenWeatherMap and returns a simplified result.

We’ll use OpenAI’s API with function calling so the model can request the weather tool.

Conclusion

You just built your first AI agent. Starting with a weather assistant is a great way to learn the workflow without getting overwhelmed. From here, you can expand into more advanced agents with memory and multiple tools.

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