The foaf:Agent class is the class of agents; things that do stuff. A well known sub-class is foaf:Person, representing people. Other kinds of agents include foaf:Organization and foaf:Group.

The foaf:Agent class is useful in a few places in FOAF where foaf:Person would have been overly specific. For example, the IM chat ID properties such as jabberID are typically associated with people, but sometimes belong to software bots.