Agents for the User Interface

Introduction We often use the word “agent” to describe people who have a helping or assistive relationship to us – travel agents, secretaries, butlers. The job of such an agent is to act autonomously to satisfy goals that we may have, give us a greater sense of productivity and reduce our workload. In this article, we’ll use the word agent to describe software that plays a similar role – providing help, advice, and “running errands” for the user.