Software Agents for Electronic Marketplaces: Current and Future Research Directions

The premise of software agents to define the structural and operational models of the virtual marketplace of the future can account for the increased interest regarding their application in areas where they can add substantial value in terms of automation and functionality. At the heart of such a marketplace rests an ontology modeling the domain upon which a nucleus of agent-based services can be constructed. Negotiation services hold the dominant position in terms of the attention they have received in research. Complementary to them, but no less important, are the advising services representing support functionality that is required throughout the cycle of a deal; from the expressed intention of the two parties to eventual maturity and closure. In this paper we focus on research trends and on their possible future development for ontologies and the above service categories emphasizing on the role of software agents in this context. A review and analysis of past and present works helps to formulate sets of questions that future research will seek to address

A Multi-Agent Architecture for an Intelligent Website in Insurance

. In this paper a multi-agent architecture for intelligent Websites is presented and applied in insurance. The architecture has been designed and implemented using the compositional development method for multi-agent systems DESIRE. The agents within this architecture are based on a generic broker agent model. It is shown how it can be exploited to design an intelligent Website for insurance, developed in co-operation with the software company Ordina Utopics and an insurance company. 1 Introduction An analysis of most current business Websites from the perspectives of marketing and customer relations suggests that Websites should become more active and personalised, just as in the nonvirtual case where contacts are based on human servants. Intelligent agents provide the possibility to reflect at least a number of aspects of the nonvirtual situation in a simulated form, and, in addition, enables to use new opportunities for one-to-one marketing, integrated in the Website. The generic a..