  Near-infrared images obtained with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT)
Adaptive Optics Bonnette (AOB) are used to investigate the stellar content
within 18 arcsec of the center of the Local Group spiral galaxy M33. AGB stars
with near-infrared spectral-energy distributions similar to those of giants in
the solar neighborhood and Baade's Window are detected over most of the field.
The bolometric luminosity function (LF) of these stars has a discontinuity near
M_{bol} = -5.25, and comparisons with evolutionary tracks suggest that most of
the AGB stars formed in a burst of star formation 1 - 3 Gyr in the past. The
images are also used to investigate the integrated near-infrared photometric
properties of the nucleus and the central light concentration. The nucleus is
bluer than the central light concentration, in agreement with previous studies
at visible wavelengths. The CO index of the central light concentration 0.5
arcsec from the galaxy center is 0.05, which corresponds to [Fe/H] = -1.2 for
simple stellar systems. Hence, the central light concentration could not have
formed from the chemically-enriched material that dominates the present-day
inner disk of M33.
