The emerging area of Application Enablement addresses challenging issues by trying to identify novel flexible network architectures and by conceiving novel conceptual and practical tools for the design, development, and execution of such applications. The aim here is to outline the possible relationship between Application Enablement in communication services research and ongoing work in the area of multi‐agent systems. In particular, this letter shows that current research into software agents and multi‐agent systems can effectively extend the dichotomy between self‐adaptive and self‐organizing approaches and potentially play a major role in inspiring and advancing the whole area of Application Enablement in communication services. © 2011 Alcatel‐Lucent.