He was the principle character included in the Persona project I already referenced. However, with their permission, we ported Peedy to the Agent format, again working with one of our animators. It also has been satisfying to see the diversity of users not only using Agent-enabled applications, but many also interested in programming Agent themselves. However, even so, most have only scratched the surface of what's possible here. It would be great to see more use of Agent with other complementary technologies like natural language or other user agent related technologies.
Computers are still too hard and confusing for many people.
The use of a graphical user interface was an important step in improving human-computer interaction, but things need to go further. Hopefully Agent will help motivate a change in how users will interact with the computers. This will require developers to really think about the social implications of communication. For example, research consistently shows that social modalities like speech communication work better when presented as part of a social entity. Where it goes from here depends in part on how much people like using it and that depends heavily on the software that uses it.