Understanding Software Agents

This paper discussed software agents by examples, their broad characteristics in relation to environment, structure and applications. The article is built up in the following way: firstly, the notion of software agents is characterized in order to explain, why software agent systems can be useful. This is followed by general remarks about application domains and categories. Finally, some examples of applications – both past and present ones – are described. The article ends with a discussion on future applications. <br>