DOC2BOT: A Document Grounded Bot Framework

Abstract

Conversational agents - or chatbots - are widely used to provide customer care and other informational support. Currently, the development of chatbots using standard frameworks requires a lot of manual crafting by subject matter experts (SMEs). On the other hand, while learning-based approaches to dialog have made significant advancements, they require training with a large volume of dialog data, which chatbot developers typically do not have access to. To tackle these challenges, we introduce DOC2BOT, a system that supports the automated construction of chatbots by digesting various forms of documents such as business manuals, HowTos, and customer support pages that organizations own. In addition to this, DOC2BOT provides a user-friendly experience to SMEs, and minimizes the effort expended by them by supporting intuitive interactions and streamlining their workflow.