Currently available agent-systems and agent-enabled applications are of a rather basic and ad hoc nature. However, more complex and elaborated systems are in the making.

In this chapter, eight application areas of the agent-technology have been identified. From those areas, Information Access and Management, Collaboration [1]  and Electronic Commerce are the ones that are most intensely studied at this moment (note that this is research that is not only into agents and agent-enabled applications, but into many other subjects as well).
To give an idea of what is already possible with agents, i.e. what is already being done with the agent technology, four examples of agent-systems and agent-enabled applications were described.


[1] For more information about research being done into Collaboration (through the Internet), see this page on WWW Collaboration Projects or the following page on Collaborative Work.
More information about (research into) Electronic Commerce can be found on this WWW page about "Electronic Commerce Web Resources".

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"Intelligent Software Agents on the Internet" - by Björn Hermans