nice paper on software agents from jeffrey m. bradshaw

“The idea of an agent originated with John McCarthy in the mid-1950’s, and the term was coined by Oliver G. Selfridge a few years later, when they were both at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They had in view a system that, when given a goal, could carry out the details of the appropriate computer operations and could ask for and receive advice, offered in human terms, when it was stuck. An agent would be a ‘soft robot’ living and doing its business within the computer’s world.” (Kay 1984)

talking also about that "explosion in the use of the term without a corresponding con-sensus on what it means", describing early approaches and what drives the development

"The emphasis has subtly shifted from deliberation to doing; from reasoning to remote action."

and what remains to be confusing:

"one person’s “intelligent agent” is another
person’s “smart object”; and today’s “smart object” is tomorrow’s “dumb program.”