The majority of the time one browses or searches the web there is a goal in mind. Find the location of a coffee shop, learn more about cloud computing, see if there are any interesting new movies, be distracted and procrastinate. Each of these instances of web use has objectives and implicitly defines a success predicate. When one (the agent) interacts with the web, a computer or simply information (the system), that systems knowledge or discovery of an explicit representation of the agent’s objectives, and the success predicates for these objectives, greatly enhances its capability to assist the agent in accomplishing its objectives.

The intentional web is a community of agents interacting with each other to accomplish their goals and increase their fitness.