Last Updated on September 12, 2022
A curated list of chatbot terminologies and general chatbot vocabulary.
I have prepared an infographic summarizing this post, you can find it below. Feel free to save the chatbot vocabulary infographic and share it with your team. For more detailed definitions and examples, scroll along.
Chatbot
A chatbot is a computer program designed to simulate human conversation. Chatbot interprets the words given to them and provides a pre-set answer.
| Chatbots running on websites | Chatbots Purpose |
|---|---|
| https://www.eurostar.com/ | Eurostar chatbot answer questions around traveling in Eurostar |
| https://www.csusb.edu/admissions/apply-csusb | CSUSB chatbot answers all admission and academia related questions |
Intent
An intent represents the purpose of the user input. It is the reason why the user is sending a message to the chatbot.
Chatbot Intent Examples:
| Phrases | Intent |
| Hi Hey Hello | Greeting |
| What is the price? What is the cost? How much does it cost? | Cost |
Entity
An entity represents details that compliment the intent. Entities are used to identify and extract useful information from natural language data. Chatbot Entities can be a date, time, email, phone number, location, etc.
Chatbot Entity examples:
| Phrases | Entities |
| When is Tesla coming to India? | Tesla, India |
| What is the price for Model S? | Model S |
| Book a demo for tomorrow | tomorrow |
Utterance
An utterance is the smallest unit of speech. It is a continuous piece of speech, beginning and ending with a clear pause. Chatbot Utterances are the inputs from the user to the chatbot.
| Utterances example |
|---|
| Moving home |
| I am moving home |
| Shifting to a new place |
Context
The context in chatbot refers to the current state of the conversation. Unlike intent and entities, which are associated with a single user message, context is about the conversation happening across multiple messages.
Chatbot context remembers the previous history and understands the purpose of the chat.
| Conversation example that shows how context is used. |
| Bot | User |
|---|---|
| How may I help you? | Book a flight for Bangalore |
| When do you want to fly? | Tomorrow |
| There are 2 flights available for tomorrow at 11 AM and 4 PM, which one you want to book? | 11 AM |
| Thank you for the confirmation. Your flight is booked. Your flight for Bangalore will depart from LA on 20 Jan 2021 at 11 AM. |
Here, the chatbot remembers the context from the history of the conversation.
Natural Language Processing (NLP)
- Natural Language refers to the way humans communicate with each other. Natural Language Processing (NLP) is broadly defined as the electronic manipulation of natural language, like speech and text, by software. NLP involves the reading and understanding of human’s spoken and written language through the computer.
| NLP Examples |
|---|
| Email Filters |
| Chatbot Assistants |
| Language Translation |
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Chatbot
Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots are chatbots that understand and answer more complex queries. The AI-powered chatbot uses Natural Language Processing to break down the user sentence into Intent and Entities. Intents and Entities information along with context is used to generate the response in the AI-powered chatbot.
Virtual Agent
A virtual agent is a computer-generated virtual character that serves customers. It uses automated programs to answer customers.
| Virtual Agent Examples |
|---|
| Alexa by Amazon |
| Siri by Apple |
| Google Assistant |
Conversational AI
Conversational AI refers to the set of technologies with which users can interact with. They use large volumes of data, machine learning, and natural language processing to help imitate human interactions, recognizing speech and text inputs and translating their meanings across various languages.
| Conversational AI Examples |
|---|
| Voice Assistants |
| Chatbots |
Bot to human handoff
Bot to human handover is handing over the conversation from the chatbot to the human representative along with all the conversation history and details.
Many platforms have started supporting bot to human handoff
Wrapping Up
In this post, we learned about the commonly used chatbot vocabulary and terminologies. Do you have other terms in mind? Feel free to share in the comments, and I’d be happy to append it to the blog.
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