Agents deliver targeted analytics to users based on a combination of schedule and trigger event. Delivery can be by a variety of routes, for example to Dashboard Alerts or to email.
To create an agent, Oracle Business Intelligence users (with the Create Agent privilege) define the operations that the agent is to perform. Oracle BI Server packages information such as priority, delivery devices, and user, into a job, and tells Oracle BI Scheduler when to execute the job. See What is Oracle BI Scheduler? in Scheduling Jobs Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.