What are Software Agents?

An autonomous software agent is a component that interacts with its environments and with other agents on a user's behalf.

What are the different kinds of agents?

Personal agents interact directly with a user (www.bottechnology.com and www.redwhale.com).

Mobile agents are sent to remote sites to collect information or perform actions and return with results (such as crawlers, knowbots, adlets).

Collaborative agents communicate and interact in groups (such as many Web 2.0 applications).

Agents should possess some of the following characteristics: adaptability, autonomy, collaboration, knowledgeability, mobility, persistence.