Software agent | Definition, Examples, & Facts

software agent, a computer program that performs various actions continuously and autonomously on behalf of an individual or an organization. For example, a software agent may archive various computer files or retrieve electronic messages on a regular schedule. Such simple tasks barely begin to tap the potential uses of software agents, however. This is because an intelligent software agent can observe the behaviour patterns of its users and learn to anticipate their needs or at least their repetitive actions. Such intelligent software agents frequently rely on techniques from other fields of artificial intelligence, such as expert systems and neural networks, and aim to achieve complex goals.

Intelligent software agents possess, to varying degrees, autonomy, mobility, a symbolic model of reality, a capacity to learn from experience, and an ability to cooperate with other agents and systems. An intelligent software agent is most frequently classified by the role that it performs. For example, Web spiders that continually traverse the Web and index its sites are often built as agents. Thus far, the most useful software agents have been developed for Internet assistance. Chatbots, another type of Internet agent, provide assistance to website visitors by conducting a dialogue with them to determine their needs and to service their more routine requests. In malicious or criminal uses, software agents are deployed in botnets in order to attack computer systems by a barrage of messages in denial-of-service attacks.

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Mobile software agents are particularly useful in gathering information—from Internet articles and academic research papers to electronic newspapers, magazines, and books—to match a user’s interests. Simple software agents have also been used to facilitate trading on eBay, an electronic auction site, as well as on various electronic exchanges. Elaborate multi-agent systems, or communities, are being constructed in which software agents meet and represent the interests of their principals in negotiations or collaborations. In addition to agent-only electronic marketplaces, collaborative projects in which each software agent provides some portion of the necessary information are under development.