Glossary/AI in Marketing/Tool Calling
AI in Marketing
Tool Calling
An AI model's ability to trigger external functions, such as searching, querying a CRM, or sending an email, instead of only writing text.
By Brandon Mina·CEO, BrandPilot AI·Updated November 2026
Short answer
Tool calling is an AI model's ability to trigger external functions, such as searching the web, querying a CRM, or sending an email, instead of only writing text. The model decides when a tool is needed and supplies the inputs, and the application runs it. Tool calling is the foundation of AI agents.