The Big Promise of Recommender Systems

Recommender systems have been part of the Internet for almost two decades. Today recommender systems are found in a multitude of online services. However, when we evaluate the current generation of recommender systems from the point of view of the "recommendee," we find that most recommender systems serve the goals of the business instead of their users' interests. We foresee a third wave of recommender systems that act directly on behalf of their users across a range of domains instead of acting as a sales assistant.