This paper describes the current evolution of agent middleware, supporting and promoting an autonomous agent component model. We first assess the current state of agent technology, then we make a case for increased integration between agents and their environment, composed by entities with different models. We notice that this integration trend emerged more and more in the last few years, but there are still important issues to be tackled and solved. Examples drawn from our experience with concrete agent infrastructures such as JADE are used to ground the discussion.