As autonomous agents proliferate in the real world, both in software and robotic settings, they will increasingly need to band together for cooperative activities with previously unfamiliar teammates. In such "ad hoc" team settings, team strategies cannot be developed a priori.

Rather, an agent must be prepared to cooperate with many types of teammates: it must collaborate without pre-coordination. This talk will cover past and ongoing research on the challenge of building autonomous agents that are capable of robust ad hoc teamwork.