Roles Of Intelligent Agents In Ebusiness

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, is a type of industry where buying and selling of product or service is conducted over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. Electronic commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web at least at one point in the transaction's life-cycle, although it may encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail, mobile devices social media, and telephones as well.

Example-

A buyer wants to buy some product, he send an electronic purchase order tp the seller. The seller then sends an electronic invoice back to him.

Site like ebay, olx are some examples also.

If done appropriately e-commerce can save time and money both. E-commerce has changed the way of traditional business system. New technologies are helping the process including promotion, searching, selecting, delivery etc.

Advantages of E-commerce

Low cost to merchant-

Every transaction is converted into electronic process, transactions become easy n fast and hence lead to low cost to merchant.

Economy-

There is no rental of physical store space or infrastructure investment.

Higher margins-

As compared to manual transactions, e-transaction are flexible and save time.

Better customer service.

Quick comparison shopping.

Productivity gains

Teamwork

Intelligent agents are a member of the bot family—software programs that operate unattended, usually on the Internet. Therefore, agents are sometimes referred to as bots. Individuals or organizations use intelligent agents to perform functions or tasks that otherwise would involve human interaction or repetition. Operating independently on behalf of their users, some intelligent agents mimic human behavior and thought processes and are able to make decisions, learn, and interact with other intelligent agents. Intelligent agents come in stationary and mobile varieties, meaning that they can either reside on individual computer systems or travel from server to server across the Internet to carry out different tasks. They are tools that can be applied in numerous ways in the context of enterprise portals. As a tool, intelligent agents are still in their infancy. Most applications are experimental and have not yet reached the efficient commercial stage. However, there is no doubt that they will play a commercial role in all aspects of enterprise portals, especially in intelligent searches and in filtering the right documents according to some criteria.

As the relationship between companies and their customers are becoming complex organizations need more information and advice on what the relationship mean and how to exploit them. Intelligent agent technology offers some interesting options for addressing such needs.

Customers are known to set certain priorities when purchasing products and services. Intelligent agents master individual customers or customer groups demand priorities by learning from experience with them, and can quantitatively and qualitatively analyze those priorities.

In the world of e-commerce, intelligent agents known as shopping bots are used by consumers to search for product and pricing information on the Web. Each shopping bot operates differently, depending on the business model used by its operator. In one scenario, shopping bots direct users to retailers who, by subscribing for a fee, are part of a closed system. Shopping.Yahoo and Shop@AOL are examples of this model. Open systems are a more common arrangement and involve agents that include the entire Web in their searches.

Services provided by Intelligent Agents

Customized customer assistance with online services: news filtering messaging, scheduling, making arrangements for gatherings, ordering, and so on.

Customer profiling, including inferring information about customer behavior based on business experiences with the particular customer.

Integrating profiles of customers into a group of marketing activities.

Negotiating price and payment schedules.

Executing financial transactions on the customer’s behalf.

These represent a spectrum of applications from the somewhat modest, low level news filtering applications to the more advanced and complicated customer relationship management applications that focus on predicting customer requirements.

The main point is that an intelligent is an intermediary between the enterprise and its customers, and a source of effective, utilitarian information encountered at different virtual destinations.

In terms of the future, the emphasis is on the collaborative technologies to create communities of practice, advanced human computer interaction to enhance performance , and intelligent agents to automate the search function.

Role of Intelligent Interfaces

what is intelligence?

The capability of thinking, problem solving, understanding, reactions all constitute intelligence

What is Interface?

It is a tool or a concept that is applicable or act as tool and binding component between all the components, hardware’s or the piece of software.

It allows a piece of software to interact with a particular hardware and perform some input output functions with the associated protocols.

Intelligent Interfaces?

The interface can be intelligent about a variety of things. One of these is system functionality.

The interface might have some knowledge of how to get around the system, or tasks a user would want to do.

With this information, the system can present its interface in an intelligent manner, making navigation and operation more intuitive to the user. 

Intelligent Interfaces

Artificial intelligence Computer Intelligence.

A computer is said to be intelligent if it do the work that a human would have done it he must have required the intelligence.

Why do we need intelligent interfaces?

* Earlier Interfaces were getting too complex

* Interfaces were too inflexible. Now, flexibility is present in new interfaces

* Interfaces don't change when our needs change

* Interfaces don't interact with each other. they have to be related separately

What makes an interface "intelligent"?

* Interface can adapt to the needs of different users

* Interface can learn new concepts and techniques

* Interface can anticipate the needs of the user

* Interface can take initiative and make suggestions to the user

* Interface can provide explanation of its actions

Architecture of intelligent programs

* Rules

* "Frame" descriptions

* Discrimination networks

* Subsumption hierarchies

* Inference engine

* Associative memory

* Matching

* Autonomous agents

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