Intelligent software agents on the Internet and Web

Summary form only given. An intelligent agent is a self-contained, autonomous software package with enough smartness to act as your personal assistant and to accomplish tasks on your behalf autonomously. It is a new paradigm in artificial intelligence and software, and is better suited for a wide range of Web-based and distributed computing applications. The emergence of intelligent agent technology is an important step forward in efficiently managing and making effective use of vast amount of information now available on-line. Intelligent software agents on the Internet and the Web are poised to revolutionise the way in which we search, filter and retrieve information, do on-line shopping, get advise and use computers. They pervade the Internet environment and networked computing systems offering a whole range of new features and greatly impacting the use of the Internet and computer-based systems. Intelligent software agents can work in the background, roam the Internet, move from one computer to another, search for information you need, filter and manage your mail, do shopping for you finding competitive products and services and personalise your Web-based applications. Also an agent can meet other agents on the net and collaborate with them to accomplish its tasks. This article presents an overview of the way in which intelligent software agents are used in a range of Internet and Web-based applications. It also discusses how they might affect and influence future applications.