Dialogflow is a natural language understanding platform used to design and integrate a
conversational user interface
A conversational user interface (CUI) is a user interface for computers that emulates a conversation with a real human. Historically, computers have relied on text-based user interfaces and graphical user interfaces (GUIs) (such as the user pressin ...
into mobile apps, web applications, devices, bots, interactive voice response systems and related uses.
History
In May 2012, Speaktoit received a venture round (funding terms undisclosed) from
Intel Capital
Intel Capital is a division of Intel Corporation, set up to manage corporate venture capital, global investment, mergers and acquisitions. Intel Capital makes equity investments in a range of technology startups and companies offering hardware, so ...
. In July 2014, Speaktoit closed their Series B funding led by Motorola Solutions Venture Capital with participation from new investor Plug and Play Ventures and existing backers Intel Capital and Alpine Technology Fund.
In September 2014, Speaktoit released api.ai (the voice-enabling engine that powers Assistant) to third-party developers, allowing the addition of voice interfaces to apps based on
Android,
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
,
HTML5
HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. It is the fifth and final major HTML version that is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HTML ...
, and
Cordova.
The SDK's contain voice recognition,
natural language understanding
Natural-language understanding (NLU) or natural-language interpretation (NLI) is a subtopic of natural-language processing in artificial intelligence that deals with machine reading comprehension. Natural-language understanding is considered an ...
, and text-to-speech. api.ai offers a web interface to build and test conversation scenarios. The platform is based on the natural language processing engine built by Speaktoit for its
Assistant application.
Api.ai allows
Internet of Things
The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other comm ...
developers to include natural language
voice interfaces in their products. Assistant and Speaktoit's websites now redirect to api.ai'
website which redirects to the Dialogflo
website
Google bought the company in September 2016
and was initially known as API.AI; it provides tools to developers building apps ("
Actions
Action may refer to:
* Action (narrative), a literary mode
* Action fiction, a type of genre fiction
* Action game, a genre of video game
Film
* Action film, a genre of film
* ''Action'' (1921 film), a film by John Ford
* ''Action'' (1980 fi ...
") for the
Google Assistant
Google Assistant is a virtual assistant software application developed by Google that is primarily available on mobile and home automation devices. Based on artificial intelligence, Google Assistant can engage in two-way conversations, unlike t ...
virtual assistant
An intelligent virtual assistant (IVA) or intelligent personal assistant (IPA) is a software agent that can perform tasks or services for an individual based on commands or questions. The term "chatbot" is sometimes used to refer to virtual ...
.
The organization discontinued the Assistant app on December 15, 2016.
In October 2017, it was renamed as Dialogflow.
[Introducing Dialogflow, the new name for api.ai](_blank)
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In November 2017, Dialogflow became part of Google Cloud Platform.Dialogflow Release Notes
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References
Further reading
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External links
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{{Google Inc.
Google acquisitions
Natural language processing software