Nowadays, we rely on our voice assistants all the time and they almost always understand what we mean. For example, check out virtually any commercial site and the little messaging app that pops up probably doesn’t have a real person behind it, offering to help you. ..
Which is why we’re excited to announce that the first ever chatbot summit will be taking place in Barcelona, Spain, from September 12-14. This event will bring together experts in chatbot development and engineering to discuss the latest advancements and how they can be applied to improve customer experience.
The leader in the AI technology running the world’s best chatbots, IBM, offers a chatbot building tool you can try for free. It’s called IBM Watson Assistant and lets anyone leverage one of the foremost AI systems in existence.
Watson, a computer program created by IBM, recently beat two human Jeopardy! champions in a three-game match. Watson’s success is due to its ability to learn from past experiences and make predictions based on that knowledge. This technology can be used for a variety of purposes, such as customer service or marketing. ..
The free account allows for 10,000 API calls to Watson Assistant per month. For most personal users this will be more than enough. It’s certainly enough for what we plan to do here!
Breaking It Down to the Basics
We want to create a chatbot that can answer questions about the world around us, from history to current events. We also want it to be able to handle complex questions, so it can help people make better decisions.
Watson Assistant is a chatbot platform that uses artificial intelligence to interpret what the user is saying and figure out what they want. There is an intent which is basically the action that the user wants to achieve. ..
Watson Assistant can be used to find out if you have stock of a particular item. By integrating with your database, Watson Assistant could pull the exact stock levels from there.
Watson is a computer system that uses natural language processing to reply to questions. It was designed to understand the user’s intent and provide an appropriate response. ..
- Choose the right question to ask your chatbot.
- Choose the right answer to give your chatbot.
- Publish your chatbot!
Intents and entities are the building blocks of a chatbot. You need to create them before you can start building the dialog tree. Next, you need to try out your chatbot by talking to it! ..
This guide will show you how to create a Watson chatbot using the core building block of a chatbot. ..
Getting Started
The Watson Assistant is a free service that lets you build chatbots without obligation. Just sign up and follow the instructions. ..
You’ll be taken to the Introducing IBM Watson Assistant page. Click Create a Workspace.
My workspace is a cluttered and chaotic mess. I’m constantly moving things around to make room for new ideas. ..
Before you add your custom intent, you should add some common IBM intents. This will save you from having to teach your bot basic conversation stuff from scratch every time. ..
To add a new intent to the content catalogue, under Intents click on Content Catalogue and then click Add to Workspace next to the General category. ..
The bot now has the ability to understand general dialog, such as greetings. To see how this works, click on the Dialog tab and then click Create Dialog. Two conversation nodes will be automatically generated – Welcome and Anything else.
Welcome to our website! Our mission is to provide information and support for people who are looking to improve their lives. We offer a variety of resources, including articles, blog posts, and videos. We also offer a variety of services, such as counseling and therapy. Our goal is to provide you with the information and support you need to make the changes you want to make in your life. Thank you for choosing us!
The dialog node is a basic structure that allows the bot to respond in a certain way based on an intent. If the bot recognizes a certain condition, it will respond accordingly. ..
Intent #General_Greetings
To create your own intent, you need to give it a name, a description, and examples of how the user would indicate this intent. IBM has already done the work for us, but it’s easy to see how it works. You can also modify this existing intent by adding more examples. ..
We are going to use this intent as part of our chatbot’s dialog, so head back to the dialog tab and click Create Dialog. Our custom dialog is going to happen between the Welcome and Anything else nodes. All you have to do, is click Add node.
We are going to call this node “Friendly Greetings” and will use the #General_Greetings intent to power it. So under If bot recognizes just type the name of the intent and choose it from the dropdown menu. ..
Hello! My name is ____ and I hope you are having a great day.
You can close the dialog node by clicking on the X button. Now we should have a bot that can respond to a basic greeting. Click the “Try It” button at the top right of the page to test the bot we’ve built so far. Type “Hello” in the chat bar that pops up and see what happens. ..
You’ve just successfully completed one full cycle of building a chatbot using the Watson Dialog Builder! ..
Advanced Features
Watson Assistant is a powerful chatbot that can take care of a variety of tasks. With its many features, you could build a bot that does things like bookings or give the user a list of products that are in stock.
The sky’s the limit and you don’t have to be some highly-technical genius to get going. IBM has plenty of tutorial videos and documents to turn you into a chatbot master. Now that you’ve had a taste, nothing should hold you back!
