Agent-based personal assistance in collaborative design environments

Computer systems have become more and more complex and users are overwhelmed with diverse tasks. Traditional online help systems cannot satisfy the users due to the lack of considering the dynamics and uncertainty. Agent technology is a promising approach to designing and developing intelligent user assistance systems, which benefit from agents' flexibility and adaptability. This paper presents our recent work on the design and implementation of personal assistant agents in collaborative design environments. Based on the coordinated, intelligent, rational agent (CIR-Agent) model, a personal assistant is designed to adapt to the user and offer intelligent assistances. A collaboration mechanism based on user interest and behavior models is developed to help find appropriate collaborators.