Intelligent-agent technology is one of the most exciting, active areas of research and development in computer science and information technology today. The First Asia-Pacific Conference on Intelligent- Agent Technology (IAT'99) attracted researchers and practitioners from diverse fields such as computer science, information systems, business, telecommunications, manufacturing, human factors, psychology, education, and robotics to examine the design principles and performance characteristics of various approaches in agent technologies and, hence, fostered the cross-fertilization of ideas on the development of autonomous agents and multiagent systems among different domains.