Information-rich environments, such as electronic markets, or even more generally the World Wide Web, require agents that can assimilate and use real-time information flows wisely. A new breed of “information-based” agents aim to meet this requirement. They are founded on concepts from information theory, and are designed to operate with information flows of varying and questionable integrity. These agents are part of a larger project that aims to make informed automated trading, in applications such as eProcurement, a reality.