Chatbot Technologies and Challenges

Abstract

Chatbots have recently become popular due to the widespread use of messaging services and the advancement of Natural Language Understanding. In this tutorial, we give an overview of the technologies that drive chatbots, including Information Extraction and Deep Learning. We also discuss the differences between conversational and transactional chatbots - the former are trained on free-form chat logs, whereas the latter are defined manually to achieve a specific goal like booking a flight. We also provide an overview of commercial tools and platforms that can help in creating and deploying chatbots. Finally, we present the limitations and future work challenges in this area.