INTELLIGENT AGENTS AND THEIR APPLICATIONS IN E-BUSINESS

INTELLIGENT AGENTS  Intelligent agents are computer programs that help the user to conduct routine tasks, search and retrieve information, support decision making and act as a domain expert.  Types of agents Buyer agent Seller agent

Need for agents  Information overload  Automate repetitive tasks  Aid in Decision Making

Six stages of sale transaction( Consumer Behaviour model)  Identification: defining the needs to be accomplished by a good, the constraints reducing opportunities and the evaluation criteria to guide the selection process.  Product Brokering: searching for good that fulfils the needs.  Merchant Brokering: gathering information from the merchant to augment the evaluation process.  Negotiation: applying selected negotiation strategies to a transaction.  Final Sale: transferring product/service ownership.  Evaluation: evaluating the transaction process (successful or not).

Application of Intelligent Agent…  Information Search and Filtering  Product and Vendor Finding  Negotiation Agents  Customer Service

Information Search and Filtering  Intelligent agent can help to determine what to buy to satisfy specific need and where to buy…  Example:- Firefly Software(Barner &Noble,My Yahoo): Firefly is a music and film recommendation system on the web which uses intelligent agents to build up a complex profile of user preferences(word-of-mouth advertising principle): (Firefly was acquired  Yahoo uses firefly for website recommendations  It is a collaboration agent that makes recommendations based on group evaluation of products

Product and Vendor Finding …  Intelligent agents help consumers decide where to buy by comparing merchants offers…. Example:-Personalogic, Bargainfinder  Bargainfinder created by anderson consulting which compares product prices of several merchants(best prices for cds)  The comparison agent takes the user product query and submits in parallel to a group of online vendors by filling out the form at each site.  The agent collects the query results parses the results and filters of header, footer, ads to find vendor price information.  Problems- some sites do not want agents to extract information only based on price  As agents themeselves are evolving, agent user may not be willing to fully rely on the agents capability (such promotions and offers, best offer with slightly higher price)

Product and vendor finding  Solutions: Cooperative agent/vendor model: Vendors put the product information that they would like to share with agents in standard form such as Identify markup language(IDML) which specifies how they would be identified for search agents Machine Learning Approach(In shopbot)  Learns how to shop without any cooperation from vendors, can read HTML pages with product information  Jango( NetBot/ Excite) Jango, developed by Netbot, Inc. where a user enters the name of a product he is looking for and Jango automatically determines which stores and information sites are relevant. It is deployed at excite shopping site.(

Agents in Auctions  Ecommerce has brought the “too-many- options” problem to consumers.  In e-auction, apart from finding the product, negotiating for the product with no fixed price to ensure that you win the bid is a challenging task with limited amount of time  E-Auction is indirect type of sale and buyers compete to get the right to buy the product

Characteristics of Agents in Auctions  AutonomyEvery agent must act autonomously; that is, without the user’s interference.  Proactivity The agents are configured to accomplish tasks based only on their search plans and strategies of negotiation.  Reactivity The agents receive and process information sent by other components; They wait for other user’s actions to decide which action to take;They build up their thinking based on the result of the processing made.  Sociability Every agent interacts with the auction sites to search for information and sell or buy products; Some agents communicate with each other.  Mobility The agents move themselves to the auction sites to search for information and to sell or buy products.

Negotiation agents  As we know Prepurchasing phase may involve negotiation in which price and other terms of transaction are determined…. Example:- Buyer Agents like AuctionBot,Tete-a- Tete Kasbah Tete-a-Tete Agent that uses co-operative negogiation approach to retail sales Negotiates based on several terms such as warranties, delivery times, service contracts, return policies, loan options, gift services and other merchant value added services Uses bilateral, multi agent negotiation environment

Negotiation Agents …..Auction Bot  Deployed at internet auction server at University of Michigan)  A seller can create a new auction to sell products by choosing from a selection of auction types and then specifying clearing times, method for resolving bidding ties and set up a reservation price. The seller agent then manages the bidding resolution.  It has API for users to create their own agents and encode their bidding strategies and then the agent bids and participates in the auction as per user specification.

Buyer agent function  Registration: The agent must register in an auction site autonomously, using its own identification.  · Product Search and Selection: It must be able to choose the best available goods at existent e-auctions and search for products that best satisfy its owner’s needs. The choice is made considering existing constraints and criteria given by the user and formalized by the agent generator.  · Negotiation Strategy Selection: The agent must be able to plan the set of actions to win a bid based on its knowledge about the specific type of auction. It uses a linear utility function that varies as it reaches the bidding closing time. The agent may have different strategies for each auction it gets enrolled.  · Bids: The agent must be able to make real offer for several products and close the buying deal.  Auction Synchronization: Besides the individual strategy used to act in an auction, the agent must be able to handle multiple auctions offering its owner the best global deal

Vendor agent Function  Registration: The agent must register in an auction site autonomously, using its identification.  · Site Search and Choice: It should choose satisfactory sites to offer its products. This search is similar to the one made by the Buyer Agent visits several auction sites to find out the best ones (lower fees, great variety of products, etc.).  · Product Information Delivery: The agent is responsible for providing information on the product when requested by the auctioneer or the auction site. The agent must be able tostore and organize the information about its products making it available when necessary.  · Monitoring: The agent can monitor current auctions it is enrolled to verify the bids proposed and decide when to close the deal.  · Action Synchronization: it concerns handling the multiple places a vendor exposes its product for sale

Customer Service  Several intelligent agent enhance customer service by helping search and by providing help to shopper  Notification agent: informs users of significant events such as content change in a particular webpage, user specified reminders.  Can be server based programs that keep monitoring user specified sites