like characters, plan interactive behaviour autonomously between other agents and users, and can initiate interaction. The interaction requirement dictates that the agent understand the users requests, answer clarification questions, and allow mixed initiative dialogs. To be proactive the agent should anticipate the user's needs, adopt the user's goals, and provide unsolicited comments and clarification. Finally, the agent must react to the user, responding immediately to interruptions, criticism and clarification questions, and also direct manipulation.
             The decision process of agents, and their selection of actions must also be examined in light of how a user would perceive their processes. Currently, many program agents select actions based on what will help them solve their goals, rather than on what will make sense to the user. The opposite approach should be adopted for user-interface agents: the actions agents select are based on the user's likely current interpretation of the agent, and are chosen to most adequately communicate the agent's thinking and behaviour to the user. The agent should make decisions based not only on its internal idea of what it is doing, but also on the likely user perception of its behaviours. (P. Sengers)
             An avatar is a graphical representation of an agent, used to simplify the interface between the user and the system. To the user an avatar appears as a graphical personification of a computer or a process that's running on a computer. These avatars are currently controversial ways of representing agents in interface design. It is intended that they will provide new ways for people to interact with their computers, as avatars try to present an environment that is more familiar than graphical desktops and command-line prompts. However, avatars will not necessarily replace menus, icons, and other elements of GUI computing. Instead, they may play the role of helpful assistant or guide.
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