Special issue: Innovations in intelligent agent technology

摘要

Intelligent agent technology is at an interesting point in its development. Commercial strength agentnapplications are increasingly being developed [1]. Furthermore commercially supported developmentnenvironments are available, e.g. [2,3] and design methodologies [4,5], reference architectures [6] andnstandards [7] are beginning to appear. These are all strong indicators of a mature technology. However,nthe uptake of the technology is not as rapid or as pervasive as its advocates have expected. Is intelligentnagent technology simply in need of the killer application, or are there more fundamental reasons as tonwhy a technology that promises so much has not seen more widespread acceptance?