New methods in Combinatorial Problem Solving can solve larger problems in different domains. They also became more complex, which means that they are hard to use and fine-tuning to the peculiarities of a given problem, limiting its use to a small set of experts, and instead black-box solvers with automated search procedure are needed for its broad applicability. Autonomous Search Systems represent a new research field defined to precisely address the above challenge. The main goal of this paper is to review recent works on this kind of Self-adaptive Systems from the standpoint of the actual requirement for solvers. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.