page_title: Intelligent agent
section_title: Classes
hierarchical_section_title: Intelligent agent / Classes
caption_attribution_description: English: Schematic diagram of a simple reflex agent.
context_page_description: In artificial intelligence, an intelligent agent refers to an autonomous entity which acts, directing its activity towards achieving goals, upon an environment using observation through sensors and consequent actuators. Intelligent agents may also learn or use knowledge to achieve their goals. They may be very simple or very complex. A reflex machine, such as a thermostat, is considered an example of an intelligent agent.
  Intelligent agents are often described schematically as an abstract functional system similar to a computer program. Researchers such as Russell & Norvig consider goal-directed behavior to be the essence of intelligence; a normative agent can be labeled with a term borrowed from economics, "rational agent". In this rational-action paradigm, an AI possesses an internal "model" of its environment. This model encapsulates all the agent's beliefs about the world. The agent also has an "objective function" that encapsulates all the AI's goals. Such an agent is designed to create and execute whatever plan will, upon completion, maximize the expected value of the objective function.
context_section_description: Russell & Norvig (2003) group agents into five classes based on their degree of perceived intelligence and capability:
  simple reflex agents
  model-based reflex agents
  goal-based agents
  utility-based agents
  learning agents
caption: Simple reflex agent
exif: {}