What particular challenges does electronic commerce pose to agent technology?
Electronic commerce poses a diverse array of challenges and opportunities for agent systems. From a Consumer Buying Behavior perspective, we see agents playing roles in three primary CBB stages: Product Brokering, Merchant Brokering, and Negotiation corresponding to what to buy, who to buy it from, and how to determine the terms of the transaction respectively. It is in these roles that agent system designers have the challenge to accurately identify and the opportunity to prescribe innovative ways of doing business. Of course, there are other opportunities for agents in ecommerce such as helping automate supply chain management and numerous other back-office tasks. What requirements must be met before we can expect to see fielded systems? The answer depends on the problem and market, of course. We already see agent systems playing visible roles in retail markets (e.g., Firefly, Jango, Dell’s computer configurators, etc.) as well as stock markets (e.g., OptiMark Technologies, E-Trade,
