Abstract
The rapid emergence of LLM-powered autonomous and semi-autonomous agents is reshaping software systems from static, request-response components into goal-directed, adaptive, and tool-using computational actors. As these agents transition from isolated cognitive prototypes into complex distributed workflows, they face challenges that the Service-Oriented Computing community has studied for over two decades: composition, interoperability, quality of service, lifecycle management, governance, security, and trust. However, much of today's agentic AI ecosystem is developing these foundations ad hoc, lacking the engineering rigor required for reliable enterprise and societal deployment.
This paper introduces Agentic Service-Oriented Computing (ASOC) as a new research and practice area concerned with engineering agents as services, orchestrating services through autonomous and semi-autonomous agents, and governing ecosystems of agents and services under constraints of trust, cybersecurity, compliance, performance, and accountability. We articulate six foundational principles of ASOC: harness-ability, composability, lifecycle engineering, trustworthiness by design, goal-driven orchestration, and observability/accountability.
We organize a five-dimensional research agenda spanning: (i) agentic services foundations and lifecycle engineering; (ii) composition, orchestration, and interoperability; (iii) governance, observability, and accountability; (iv) security, trust, and risk management; and (v) evaluation, certification, and Agentic QoS. We argue that the Services Computing community is especially well positioned to provide the conceptual and engineering spine for this emerging field, transforming agentic AI from fragmented demonstrations into dependable, service-based systems worthy of human and organizational trust.
Blogger's Review: This paper emphasizes the significance of Agentic Service-Oriented Computing, providing a new perspective for future software system design. By adopting systematic engineering approaches, the reliability and security of agents can be enhanced, thereby promoting the widespread adoption of intelligent agents in practical applications.