Agents in a nutshell - A very brief introduction

Agent-based approaches are becoming increasingly important because of their generality, flexibility, modularity, and ability to take advantage of distributed resources. Agents are used in information retrieval, entertainment, coordinating multiple robots, and modeling economic systems. Agents can recommend music, tell stories, and interact with people. They are useful for reducing humans' work and information load in tasks such as medical monitoring and battlefield reasoning. Agents are already changing the way in which we gather information, manage investments, and conduct business. This article provides an introduction to agent issues, outlines motivations for using agent-based paradigms, and describes some of their current uses.