Introduction to Microsoft Agent

Microsoft® Agent is a set of programmable software services that supports the presentation of interactive animated characters within the Microsoft Windows® interface. Developers can use characters as interactive assistants to introduce, guide, entertain, or otherwise enhance their Web pages or applications in addition to the conventional use of windows, menus, and controls.

Microsoft Agent enables software developers and Web authors to incorporate a new form of user interaction, known as conversational interfaces, that leverages natural aspects of human social communication. In addition to mouse and keyboard input, Microsoft Agent includes optional support for speech recognition so applications can respond to voice commands. Characters can respond using synthesized speech, recorded audio, or text in a cartoon word balloon.

The conversational interface approach facilitated by the Microsoft Agent services does not replace conventional graphical user interface (GUI) design. Instead, character interaction can be easily blended with the conventional interface components such as windows, menus, and controls to extend and enhance your application's interface.

Microsoft Agent's programming interfaces make it easy to animate a character to respond to user input. Animated characters appear in their own window, providing maximum flexibility for where they can be displayed on the screen. Microsoft Agent includes an ActiveX® control that makes its services accessible to programming languages that support ActiveX, including Web scripting languages such as Visual Basic® Scripting Edition (VBScript). This means that character interaction can be programmed even from HTML pages using the <OBJECT> tag.

Purpose

Microsoft Agent version 2.0 provides unprecedented technology to create innovative, new conversational interfaces for applications and Web pages. It provides powerful animation capability, interactivity, and versatility, with incredible ease of development.

Microsoft Agent is a technology that provides a foundation for more natural ways for people to communicate with their computers. It is a set of software services that enable developers to incorporate interactive animated characters into their applications and Web pages. These characters can speak, via a text-to-speech engine or recorded audio, and even accept spoken voice commands. Microsoft Agent empowers developers to extend the user interface beyond the conventional mouse and keyboard interactions prevalent today.

Enhancing applications and Web pages with a visible interactive personality will both broaden and humanize the interaction between users and their computers.

Where Applicable

There are a limitless number of roles and functions that developers can create for these personalities to perform.

• A welcome host could greet new users and provide a guided tour the first time a computer is turned on, an application is run, or a Web site is browsed.
  
• A friendly tutor could lead someone through a task or a decision tree with instructions step-by-step along the way.

• A messenger could deliver a notification or alert that a new e-mail has arrived and then offer to read it to you.

• An assistant could perform tasks for you like looking up information on the Internet and then reading it out loud.

To see a demo of Microsoft Agent Technology click the View Demo button.