Exploring Scenario Agents as Support for Key Technology Foresight

Today, the increasingly faster technological advances make the competition ever-fiercer in the business environment. This situation has laid emphasis on the importance of technology foresight for corporations to plan and even shape their futures for a long term. However, the conventional methods do not overcome the problems with the overload and heterogeneity of information in the current information society. In this study, scenario agents, as an intelligent information system and part of the Foresight Support System, are used to help corporate people to deal with large amount of information efficiently, systematically and intelligently. This system combines the advantages of scenario building and storyline approaches and embeds the foresight models formed by these two approaches. The scenario agents supported foresight system is now being implemented in an industrial corporation and is expected to provide weak signals or early warnings of the future developments and trends of key technologies. This study investigates how scenario agents can effectively assist key technology foresight research and further strengthen corporate competence.