CSML Studio allows you to use your own pre-trained Natural Language Processing (NLP) service directly in your CSML chatbots with very little configuration. You can easily setup your favorite NLP provider in AI & NLU > NLU Configuration:

By default, all bots run in Strict Mode, where the input needs to exactly match one of the given rules to trigger a flow.

When a NLP provider is configured, all text events will be sent to the NLP provider and returned either as a payload event if an intent is found, or untouched if no intent is found. When an intent is found, the value of the payload will be intent:nameOfIntent.

No matter what NLP provider you pick, any event that passes through this process will have the following properties:

// if an intent is found:
event.intent = {
  "name": "..." // contains the name of the intent, same
  "confidence": "..." // the confidence score that this is the right intent
}
​
// or, when no intent is found:
event.intent == null
​
// if other intents match the request:
event.alternative_intents = [ Intent {}, ... ]
​
// when entities are found, event.entities containes a map of found entities
event.entities.ENTITY_NAME = [
  {
    "value": "the value",
    "metadata": {
      // ... additional metadata as returned by the NLP provider
    }
  }
]
​
// when this information is known, the processing language code
event.language = "en"

A few additional properties are also set in the resulting event:

• event._nlp_provider: contains details about the NLP provider integration

• event._nlp_result: contains the raw response from the NLP provider

• event.text: contains the original text input

Using NLU in your flows

You can now use the event by matching a found intent with a flow command, by setting that intent as one of the accepted commands for a flow, using the AI Rules feature.

Alternatively, you can also decide to match buttons or other actions within a flow with the found data. For instance, you can use NLP to detect a YES_INTENT and match it without having to list all the possible ways to say "yes" in the button's accepts array.

start:
​
  say Question(
    "Do you like chocolate?",
    buttons=[
      Button("Yes", accepts=["intent:YES_INTENT"]) as btny,
      Button("No", accepts=["intent:NO_INTENT"]) as btnn,
    ]
  )
  hold
  
  if (event match btny) say "I knew it!"
  else if (event match btnn) say "I think you are lying..."
  
  goto end