Prudential invests heavily in intelligent agents

NEWS UK bank the Prudential has taken a stake in intelligent agent technology firm Lost Wax in a move aimed at changing the way it does business. The Prudential, as part of a consortium including Californian design company IDEO and existing private investors, has put £3m into the UK ecommerce firm. The Prudential said it wants to use the company's agent technology to help customers by performing time-consuming tasks such as research and cost negotiation automatically.