Modeling Agents for Providing User Interface Assistance: The Design of the GAIA Interaction Agent

This paper presents the architectural design of the GAIA interaction agent. Interaction agents implement the metaphor of the agent/personal assistant for computer-based environments that are innovative and rich in functionality thus have a tendency to produce information overload and are possibly difficult to use. Brokerage systems are typically such complex environments. The manner by which interaction agents can provide useful assistance to users is presented both generically and in the context of the GAIA brokerage environment. The requirements for the interaction agent architectural components are explained and the agent’s conceptual architecture is described. The modeling of the agent environment and interactions, and the selection of inference mechanisms is discussed, as well as the technical approach taken with respect to software engineering issues. While the requirements, design and development approach for interaction agents is generic, it is examined in the context of the ACTS (AC 221) project GAIA (Generic Architecture for Information Availability), where this work has been carried out.