MAPPING ACTIONS AND OBJECTS TO TASKS

• US 20150121216A1
• Filed: 10/31/2013
• Published: 04/30/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verint Americas Incorporated (Verint Systems Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Next IT Corporation (Verint Systems Incorporated)
• Inventors: Brown, Fred A., Miller, Tanya M., Brown, Megan, Thompson, Verlie
• Granted Patent: US 10,055,681 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/707
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/35 Discourse or dialogue representation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/40 Processing or translation of natural language natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 3/006 based on simulated virtual individual or collective life forms, e.g. social simulations or particle swarm optimisation [PSO]
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 3/008 based on physical entities controlled by simulated intelligence so as to replicate intelligent life forms, e.g. based on robots replicating pets or humans in their appearance or behaviour
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/223 Execution procedure of a spoken command
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/527 Centralised call answering arrangements not requiring operator intervention

Abstract

Techniques for mapping actions and objects to tasks may include identifying a task to be performed by a virtual assistant for an action and/or object. The task may be identified based on a task map of the virtual assistant. In some examples, the task may be identified based on contextual information of a user, such as a conversation history, content output history, user preferences, and so on. The techniques may also include customizing a task map for a particular context, such as a particular user, industry, platform, device type, and so on. The customization may include assigning an action, object, and/or variable value to a particular task.

Claims

1. One or more computer-readable storage media storing computer-readable instructions that, when executed, instruct one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

obtaining user input that is received at a smart device during a conversation between a user and a virtual assistant;

analyzing the user input to determine an action and an object;

identifying a task that is associated with at least one of the action or the object; and

causing the task to be at least partly performed by the virtual assistant.

2. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 1, wherein the action comprises a verb and the object comprises a noun.

3. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 1, wherein the identifying the task comprises:

identifying one or more tasks in a task map that are associated with at least one of the action or the object; and

identifying a task, from among the one or more tasks, that is associated with a score that is greater than a threshold and/or that is a single task that is identified in the task map.

4. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 1, wherein the identifying the task comprises:

identifying multiple tasks in a task map that are each associated with at least one of the action or the object;

causing the user to be prompted for information regarding the multiple tasks; and

obtaining further user input identifying one of the multiple tasks that is to be performed by the virtual assistant.

5. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 1, wherein the identifying the task comprises:

identifying multiple tasks in a task map that are each associated with at least one of the action or the object;

assigning a score to each of the multiple tasks based at least in part on contextual information related to at least one of the user or the conversation;

ranking the multiple tasks based at least in part on the scores of the multiple tasks; and

selecting a task from the ranked multiple tasks.

6. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 1, wherein the task is identified based at least in part on contextual information.

7. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

upon identifying the task, identifying a variable for performing the task; and

obtaining a value for the variable by at least one of causing the user to be prompted for further user input or analyzing contextual information related to at least one of the user or the conversation.

8. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

learning information to be associated with the task based at least in part on the conversation between the user and the virtual assistant, the information comprising at least one of the action, the object, or a value of a variable for the task.

9. A method comprising:

under control of one or more computing devices configured with executable instructions,

causing a conversation user interface to be output on a smart device to enable a conversation between a user of the smart device and a virtual assistant;

learning information to be associated with a task to be performed by the virtual assistant based at least in part on the conversation of the virtual assistant with the user, the information comprising at least one of an action, an object, or a value of a task variable; and

associating at least one of the action, the object, or the value of the task variable with the task.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the learning comprises:

identifying input that is received from the user during the conversation;

determining that one or more criteria are not satisfied to classify a particular task that was performed by the virtual assistant for the input as an accurately identified task;

identifying a task that was initiated by the user after the particular task was performed by the virtual assistant; and

identifying at least one of an action or an object of the input to be associated with the task that was initiated by the user.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the learning comprises:

identifying a request that is received from the user during the conversation, the request requesting to associate a particular term or phrase with the task.

12. The method of claim 12, wherein the input is received through a user interface that enables the user to associate a task with an action-object pair.

13. One or more computer-readable storage media storing computer-readable instructions that, when executed, instruct one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

identifying a context for configuring a task map of a virtual assistant, the task map mapping tasks to be performed by the virtual assistant to action-object pairs;

obtaining information related to the context; and

configuring the task map for the context by assigning at least one task to a particular action-object pair based at least in part on the information related to the context.

14. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 13, wherein:

the context comprises an industry to which the virtual assistant is to be deployed; and

the information related to the context comprises one or more terms or phrases that are used within the industry.

15. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 13, wherein:

the context comprises a platform for which the virtual assistant is to be deployed; and

the information related to the context comprises one or more terms or phrases that are used in association with the platform.

16. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 13, wherein:

the context comprises a device type for which the virtual assistant is to be deployed; and

the information related to the context comprises one or more terms or phrases that are used in association with the device type.

17. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 13, wherein:

the context comprises a user for which the virtual assistant is to be deployed; and

the information related to the context comprises at least one of a current conversation history of the user with the virtual assistant, a previous conversation history of the user with the virtual assistant, input of the user that requests that the at least one task be associated with the particular action-object pair, content output history of the user that identifies content that has been output to the user, user preference information indicating one or more preferences of the user, or device information indicating a type of device that is used by the user.

18. A method comprising:

under control of one or more computing devices configured with executable instructions,

causing a conversation user interface to be output on a smart device to enable a conversation between a user of the smart device and a virtual assistant;

analyzing the conversation to determine at least one of an action or an object;

identifying a task that is associated with at least one of the action or the object;

identifying a variable associated with performance of the task; and

obtaining a value for the variable by (i) analyzing contextual information that is related to at least one of the conversation or the user and/or (ii) causing the user to be prompted the value of the variable.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the obtaining the value for the variable comprises analyzing the contextual information that is related to at least one of the conversation or the user, the contextual information comprising at least one of a previous conversation between the user and the virtual assistant, preference information indicating a preference of the user, or content output history that identifies content that has been output to the user.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the obtaining the value for the variable comprises determining that a term or phrase in contextual information corresponds to the value for the variable based on at least one of a word type or category of the term or phrase.

21. The method of claim 18, wherein at least one of identifying the task or obtaining the value for the variable includes utilizing a goal-based dialog.

22. The method of claim 18, wherein the virtual assistant is configured for at least one of multi-modal input/out, multi-language communication, or multi-channel communication.