Abstract: Provided is a system for the creation of autonomous and semi-autonomous networked and non-networked software agents from reusable software components based on domain-specific ontologies and component metadata to reduce the workload and improve the efficiency of end-users. The reusable software components that this system combines into software agents exist either as individual programming entities, such as C++ classes or Java Beans, as component-based system entities, such as Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) objects or Component Object Model (COM) clients/servers, as stand-alone applications, as Web Services, or as any other individual software entity. Each knowledge domain of interest for agent processing is described using metadata based on one or more ontologies. Each reusable software component is described by metadata adhering to one or more relevant ontologies, defining the component's relationship(s) with the data and procedural model(s) of the relevant knowledge domain(s).