UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (IFAAMAS) has elected Hadi Hosseini as its president, effective May 29. Hosseini is an associate professor in the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology Department of Informatics and Intelligent Systems. He also serves as associate director of the Center for Artificial Intelligence Foundations and Engineered Systems and is affiliated with the Center for Social Data Analytics and the Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence.
The IFAAMAS is a nonprofit organization that promotes science and technology in the areas of artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous agents and multiagent systems.
In this Q&A, Hosseini discussed agent systems, the role of the IFAAMAS and what he hopes to achieve as its leader.
Q: What is an agent?
Hosseini: As technology companies race to build AI agents capable of completing tasks autonomously, the scientific foundations behind those systems trace back to decades of research in autonomous agents and multiagent systems.
An agent is any entity that has goals, values and the ability to take actions in response to its environment. The concept applies broadly to people and organizations, but it has also existed for decades in computing and artificial intelligence.
Software agents range from simple algorithms to advanced AI systems with billions of parameters. What distinguishes an agent from ordinary software is that it operates toward goals and makes decisions based on preferences or objectives.
A robot vacuum cleaner is a classic example. Using sensors, it perceives its surroundings and decides actions, such as turning or moving forward, to achieve its goal of cleaning a space. More advanced agents — humans, organizations, AI systems — operate similarly but with far more complex goals, interactions and decision-making processes. Today’s AI agents may schedule meetings, coordinate supply chains, manage robotic systems or assist with scientific discovery.
Researchers have studied how systems pursue goals, adapt to changing environments, interact with other systems and handle uncertainty.
Many of society’s most difficult problems — from traffic coordination and disaster response to financial markets and online platforms — involve multiple decision-makers with competing goals. Multiagent systems research studies how these interactions can remain efficient, cooperative and fair. These agents may have different or even conflicting goals, values and preferences, complicating coordination and decision-making. Their interactions may be cooperative, meaning they work together toward shared goals, or competitive, where they are competing for resources or advantages.
Researchers in this field design algorithms that help agents make collective decisions, collaborate on shared tasks, coordinate actions and compete fairly in different environments.
Q: What is the role of IFAAMS?
Hosseini: The foundation supports research, education and international collaboration through conferences, publications and community initiatives. It organizes the annual Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS) conference, one of the leading global conferences in the field. AAMAS brings together researchers from academia and industry working on AI coordination, robotics, economics, machine learning and human-AI interaction.
IFAAMS was formed about 25 years ago through the merger of several research communities studying how intelligent software systems operate and interact.
Some researchers in the field explored how different systems could interact effectively by developing shared architectures and common languages for communication between agents.
Other researchers concentrated on autonomous agents — systems capable of acting independently to accomplish complex tasks. Rather than following rigid, step-by-step instructions, these agents are given goals and must determine their own subtasks, adapt to uncertainty, coordinate with others and gather resources.
Over time, researchers recognized that these challenges were deeply connected. Agents rarely operate meaningfully in isolation: Most important problems involve interaction with other agents through cooperation, coordination, competition and resource sharing. As a result, the separate research communities merged to form a broader field centered on autonomous agents and multiagent systems.
Today, the foundation operates as an international nonprofit organization with leadership elected by the global research community.
Q: You will assume the foundation's presidency this month during the AAMAS conference. What are your goals for this role?
Hosseini: I hope that IFAAMS can expand awareness of multiagent systems research now that AI agents are becoming central to public and industry conversations. The future challenges of AI will not be solved simply through larger models or more computing power. Rather, it will involve many interacting systems. The key obstacles involve how the agents interact with one another and with uncertain environments, including communication, planning, coordination, learning and decision-making.