Internet of Agents: Fundamentals, Applications, and Challenges

TL;DR

This survey introduces the Internet of Agents (IoA) as a foundational framework for interconnected autonomous AI agents, enabling scalable, collaborative, and dynamic multi-agent systems across various environments.

Contribution

It presents a comprehensive IoA architecture, analyzes key operational enablers, and discusses open research directions for resilient and trustworthy multi-agent ecosystems.

Findings

Proposes a hierarchical IoA architecture with distinguishing features.

Identifies key enablers like capability discovery and adaptive protocols.

Highlights open challenges for building resilient IoA ecosystems.

Abstract

With the rapid proliferation of large language models and vision-language models, AI agents have evolved from isolated, task-specific systems into autonomous, interactive entities capable of perceiving, reasoning, and acting without human intervention. As these agents proliferate across virtual and physical environments, from virtual assistants to embodied robots, the need for a unified, agent-centric infrastructure becomes paramount. In this survey, we introduce the Internet of Agents (IoA) as a foundational framework that enables seamless interconnection, dynamic discovery, and collaborative orchestration among heterogeneous agents at scale. We begin by presenting a general IoA architecture, highlighting its hierarchical organization, distinguishing features relative to the traditional Internet, and emerging applications. Next, we analyze the key operational enablers of IoA, including capability notification and discovery, adaptive communication protocols, dynamic task matching, consensus and conflict-resolution mechanisms, and incentive models. Finally, we identify open research directions toward building resilient and trustworthy IoA ecosystems.