Also know as software agent. Software that can do things without supervision, because it knows your patterns, history, preferences, likes, dislikes, and so forth. You want to take a vacation - it knows that you really enjoyed that trip to Hawaii, and that you prefer to fly at night, 1st class. It also knows that the bungalow you rented last time was marked as being 5-star, and worth a re-visit. Your IA then collates all your parameters, searches the internet for flights, car rentals, restaurant reservations, and lodgings, and schedules everything for you, with options on the side. No more travel agent - you have a software agent to handle things! Many experts agree that by 2010 we will each have one, and that they will greatly reduce our daily load of trivial and redundant tasks. See Is There an Intelligent Agent in Your Future?.