Facilitating participation in a virtual meeting using an intelligent assistant

• US 10,403,272 B1
• Filed: 03/07/2014
• Issued: 09/03/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 03/07/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Fanty, Mark, Gandrabur, Simona
• Primary Examiner(s): Bost, Dwayne D
• Assistant Examiner(s): Brinich, Stephen M
• Application Number:
  US14/201,775
• Time in Patent Office: 2,006 Days
• Field of Search: 704275, 7042701, 704270, 704231, 704 9, 704257, 704200, 379 8801, 379 8822
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 17/24 the user being prompted to utter a password or a predefined phrase
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/02 using automatic reactions or user delegation, e.g. automatic replies or chatbot-generated messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15

Abstract

An intelligent assistant can be used to facilitate an end user'"'"'s participation in a virtual meeting. The intelligent assistant can receive recognized speech from a speech recognition engine, and then forward the recognized speech to a natural language understanding engine which in turn ascribes a meaning to the recognized speech. The ascribed meaning can include a semantic representation of the recognized speech and thereby a semantic representation of voice commands enshrined within the recognized speech. Using the ascribed meaning, the intelligent assistant then searches for meeting information associated with the virtual meeting and uses that meeting information to join the end user to the virtual meeting. Meeting information can include a conference call number, a participant code, a moderator code or a link to an online meeting.

Claims

1. A method for facilitating a user'"'"'s participation in a virtual meeting using an intelligent assistant executing on a device, the method comprising:

receiving, by an intelligent assistant executing on a device, recognized speech from a speech recognition system, wherein the recognized speech comprises a voice command issued by a user of the device, the voice command instructing the device to join a virtual meeting;

providing the received recognized speech to a natural language understanding (NLU) engine, the NLU engine ascribing a meaning to the recognized speech, wherein the ascribed meaning corresponds to the voice command issued by the user; and

in response to determining that the ascribed meaning of the recognized speech comprising the voice command indicates a desire to join the virtual meeting, accessing the virtual meeting with the device, wherein accessing the virtual meeting with the device comprises;

obtaining meeting access information for accessing the virtual meeting from the user'"'"'s calendar, email, to-do list, and/or contact list without receiving manual input of the meeting access information from the user; and

joining the device to the virtual meeting using the obtained meeting access information.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, by the device, an utterance comprising a voice command issued by the user;

transmitting the received utterance to the speech recognition system to be recognized, wherein the speech recognition system recognizes the received utterance and outputs the recognized speech; and

displaying, to the user, participants in the virtual meeting.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein:

providing the received recognized speech to the NLU engine further comprises forwarding the received recognized speech to a NLU engine executing on a second device remote from the device.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein obtaining meeting access information for accessing the virtual meeting further comprises searching for meeting access information for accessing the virtual meeting using contextual information associated with the device.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein obtaining meeting access information for accessing the virtual meeting further comprises searching for meeting access information for accessing the virtual meeting using contextual information associated with a location of the device, a current date and a current time.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein joining the device to the virtual meeting further comprises:

dialing a phone number for accessing the virtual meeting without receiving the phone number from the user; and

entering a passcode for accessing the virtual meeting.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein obtaining the meeting access information comprises obtaining the phone number and/or the passcode for accessing the virtual meeting from a meeting appointment.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein joining the device to the virtual meeting using the meeting access information comprises prompting the user to confirm that the user desires joining the virtual meeting.

9. At least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having encoded thereon executable instructions that, when executed by at least one processor of a device, cause the at least one processor to carry out a method of operating an intelligent assistant to facilitate a user'"'"'s participation in a virtual meeting, the method comprising:

receiving recognized speech from a speech recognition system, wherein the recognized speech comprises a voice command generated by a user of the device, the voice command instructing the device to join a virtual meeting,

providing the received recognized speech to a natural language understanding (NLU) engine, the NLU engine ascribing a meaning to the recognized speech, wherein the ascribed meaning corresponds to the voice command issued by the user, and

in response to determining that the ascribed meaning of the recognized speech comprising the voice command indicates a desire to join the virtual meeting, accessing the virtual meeting with the device, wherein accessing the virtual meeting with the device comprises;

obtaining meeting access information for accessing the virtual meeting from the user'"'"'s calendar, email, to-do list, and/or contact list without receiving manual input of the meeting access information from the user; and

joining the device to the virtual meeting using the obtained meeting access information.

10. The at least one computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving an utterance comprising the voice command issued by the user,

transmitting the received utterance to the speech recognition system to be recognized, wherein the speech recognition system recognizes the received utterance and outputs the recognized speech, and

displaying, to the user, participants in the virtual meeting.

11. The at least one computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein:

the NLU engine executes on a second device remote from the device.

12. The at least one computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein obtaining the meeting access information comprises searching for meeting access information for accessing the virtual meeting using contextual information associated with the device.

13. The at least one computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein obtaining the meeting access information comprises searching for meeting access information for accessing the virtual meeting using contextual information associated with a location of the device, a current date and a current time.

14. The at least one computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein joining the device to the virtual meeting comprises:

dialing a phone number for accessing the virtual meeting without receiving the phone number from the user; and

entering a passcode for accessing the virtual meeting.

15. The at least one computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein obtaining the meeting access information comprises obtaining the phone number and/or the passcode for accessing the virtual meeting from a meeting appointment.

16. The at least one computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the device comprises a mobile device in possession of the user.

17. The at least one computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein the method further comprises selecting a mode of communication of the device in the virtual meeting by selecting between:

sending and receiving audio-only data, and

sending and receiving both video data and audio data.