The Agents Journey

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Viviana Mascardi, Andrea Omicini (eds.)
Lecture Notes in Computer Science (State-of-the-Art Survey) 16395
Springer Nature Switzerland
April 2026

Multi-agent systems are nowadays at the core of the emerging Agentic AI field, providing the conceptual and computational foundations for building intelligent systems composed of interacting autonomous entities. These systems consist of multiple agents that engage with one another and with their environment to achieve individual and collective goals. The contributions in this volume place multiagent abstractions at the heart of intelligent systems research, raising deep and novel research questions. Collectively, they offer the reader a conceptual path tracing the evolution of the domain over recent decades, while outlining future perspectives. Specific approaches discussed include trust, self-organization, multiagent-based simulation, formal models for multiagent systems, MAS protocols, and applications in software engineering and distributed systems.

Inspired in part by the success of the workshop From Objects to Agents (WOA), the contributions in this open access volume will be valuable for researchers in agent systems, AI, software engineering, and networking.

keywordsOpen Access, Agentic AI, Agents, Agent Systems, Multiagent Systems (MAS), Software Engineering, WOA, Distributed Systems, Computational Logic, Smart Objects, Interaction Protocols, Software Agents
journal or series
book Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS)
funding project
wrenchENGINES — ENGineering INtElligent Systems around intelligent agent technologies (28/09/2023–27/02/2026)
works as
container publication for
page_white_acrobat25 Years of Declarative Agent Technologies in Italy (book chapter, 2026) — Davide Ancona, Daniela Briola, Angelo Ferrando, Maurizio Martelli, Viviana Mascardi
page_white_acrobatAI Infrastructure: From Gigastructure to Edge Intelligence with Multi-Agent Systems (book chapter, 2026) — Andrea Omicini, Alessandro Ricci, Viviana Mascardi
page_white_acrobatIntelligent Agents from Symbolic to Neurosymbolic Systems: The Quest for Integration (book chapter, 2026) — Andrea Agiollo, Roberta Calegari, Giovanni Ciatto, Matteo Magnini, Andrea Omicini, Federico Sabbatini
page_white_acrobatPreface (editorial/introduction/preface, 2026) — Viviana Mascardi, Andrea Omicini