Intelligent Agents on the

Internet and Web

BY
ROHIT SINGH MANHAS
070919048
M.C.A 4TH SEM.
Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal
•Agents

•Intelligent Agents

•Characteristics of Intelligent Agents

•Classes of Intelligent Agents

•Classification and Application of Intelligent Agents

•Agent Services

•Conclusion

•References

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal

 Agents

An agent is anything that can be viewed as

perceiving its environment through sensors
and acting upon that environment through its
effectors to maximize progress towards its
goals.

•Human agent: eyes, ears, and other organs

for sensors;
hands, legs, mouth, and other body parts for
actuators
•Robotic agent: cameras and infrared range
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Agents interact with environments
through sensors and effectors

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 Intelligent
Agent
•Intelligent Agent (IA)
An intelligent agent (IA) is a self-contained,
autonomous software module that could perform
certain tasks on behalf of its users with some degree
of independence or autonomy, and in so doing,
employ some knowledge or representation of the
user's goals or desires.
•The term agent is derived from the concept of
agency, referring to employing someone to act on
your behalf.

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 Characteristics of Intelligent
Agents
• Autonomy or empowerment
– An agent that takes initiative and
exercises control over its own
actions have these characteristics:
• Goal oriented
• Collaborative
• Flexible
• Self-starting

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• Communication (interactivity)
– Many agents are designed to interact with
other agents, humans, or software
programs
• Automating repetitive tasks
– An agent is designed to perform narrowly
defined tasks, which it can do over and
over without getting bored or sick or
going on strike

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• Reactivity
– Agents perceive their environment and
respond in a timely fashion to changes
that occur in it
• Proactiveness (or persistence)
– Agents are able to exhibit goal-directed
behavior by taking initiative
• Temporal continuity
– Agents are continuously running
processes that can be temporarily
inactive while waiting for something to
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 Why Intelligent Agents?
• Information overload
– A major value of intelligent agents is that they are
able to assist in searching through all the data
– Intelligent agents save time by making decisions
about what is
relevant to the user on its behalf
• Reasons for the success of agents
– Decision support
– Frontline decision support
– Repetitive office activities
– Mundane personal activity
– Search and retrieval
– Domain experts
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 Classes of intelligent
agents
• Simple Reflex agents
• Model-based reflex
agents
• Goal-based agents
• Utility-based agents

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 Simple Reflex Agents
Simple reflex agents acts only on the basis of the
current percept. The agent function is based on the
condition-action rule: if condition then action rule

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 Vacuum-cleaner world

• Percepts: location and contents, e.g.,

[A, Dirty]
Actions:REFLEX-VACUUM-AGENT
• Function Left, Right, Suck. ([location,
status])
returns action
if status = Dirty then return Suck
else if location = A then return Right
else if location = B then return Left

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 Model-Based Reflex Agents

A model-based reflex agent keeps track of the current

state of the world using an internal model. It then
chooses an action in the same way as the reflex
agent. Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal
 Function REFLEX-AGENT-WITH-STATE (percept) returns an
action
static: state, a description of the current world state
rules, a set of condition-action rules
action, the most recent action, initially none

state UPDATE-STATE (state, action, percept)

rule RULE-MATCH(state, rules)
action RULE-ACTION[rule]
return action

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 Goal-Based Agents

Goal-based agents are model-based agents which store

information regarding situations that are desirable. This allows the
agent a way to choose among multiple possibilities, selecting the
one which reaches a goal state.
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 Utility-Based Agents

Goal-based agents only distinguish between

goal states and non-goal states. It is possible
to define a measure of how desirable a
particular state is. This measure can be
obtained through the use of a utility function
which maps a state to a measure of the utility

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Utility-Based Agents
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Classification of Intelligent Agents

1. Mobile Agents
2. Interface Agents
3. Multi-Agent System (MAS)
4. Information/Internet Agents
5. Learning Agents

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 APPLICATIONS OF INTELLIGENT
AGENTS ON THE INTERNET AND WEB

Agent-Based Information
Retrieval
1. Information Explosion
2. Interfaces
3. Mediated Searches and Information
Brokers
4. Information Filtering Agents

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Agents in Electronic Commerce
• Helping the user decide which products
to buy
• Finding specifications and reviews of
them.
• Making recommendations
• Comparison shopping to find the best
price for the desired product.
• Watching for and-intimating user about

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Agent Services

•Announcement Agents
•Book Agents
•Business Information Monitoring
Agents
•Classified Agents
•Job Agents
•Financial Service Agents
•Entertainment Agents

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 CONCLUSION
Intelligent agents on the Internet and Web will grow
dramatically in the next few years and they would be
put into use in a variety of new applications and
services. The following quotes aptly highlight the
prospects of intelligent agents.

“Agents are here to stay ... because of their diversity,

their
wide range of applicability and the broad spectrum of
companies investing in them.”

“In the future, it [agent] is going to be the only way to

search
the Internet, because no matter how much, better the
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 REFERENCES AND RESOURCES
3. Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach by
Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig, 1995
Prentice-Hall, Inc.
4. Bradshaw, J. M (ed.,), 1997. Software Agents,
Menlo Park, CA: AAAI/MIT Press, 1997
5. IEEE Internet Computing, Vol. I, No. 3, July –
August 1997, Special Issue on Internet-Based
Agents.
6. Communications of the ACM Journal
"Intelligent Agents"Vo1.37, No.7, July 1994
7. Comm. of the ACM 1994, Special Issue on
Intelligent Agents, July 1994.
8. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia
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 THANK
YOU !!!

Dept. of I&CT, MIT, Manipal