An agent is a computational entity that has some level of independence or autonomy. Agents may be used behind the scenes, for example in robotic process automation or interact directly with humans in a user interface agents. Agents may act individually, but cooperating agents can communicate with one another, typically using messages leading to more complex behaviours.
Cooperating agents can also be applied at a low-level as part of swarm computing or to simulate human crowds or flocks of birds.
Used in glossary entries: cooperating agents, robotic process automation, swarm computing
EAGER represented as a cat icon – an early example of an embodied software agent (image from "EAGER: Programming Repetitive Tasks by Example" Allen Cypher (1991)),