Entity

Under Intent on the left sidebar on YOCTOL.AI, an entity includes a group of entity values, which are normally nouns of the same category and can all be applied whenever the specific entity is used in any utterance. Common entities include: objects, names, time, locations or prices.

Entities are under intents. When a user sends in messages, the NLU model will first identify the message’s intent, then it will match the message with all the entity values listed. Same entity can be used in multiple intents, widening the range of knowledge a chatbot can learn from its utterances.

An entity can have multiple entity values. An entity value may have multiple synonyms.

You can create entities when writing utterances. Entities should be marked with the symbols {{ }}.

The name of an entity cannot start with a number.

Example

Take a beverage shop chatbot as an example. A possible entity for product inquiry may be the type of product.

• Entity: Product

• Entity Value: Boba, bubble green tea

• Synonyms for Boba: bubble tea; bubble green tea: boba green tea

You can use the entity “Product” for the intent “Product inquiry as such:

1. Expand utterances: An example utterance for the intent “Product inquiry” would be “I want to learn more about {{product}}”

   • To the NLU engine, this utterance may be expanded into:

     • I want to learn more about the bubble tea.

     • I want to learn more about the bubble green tea.

     • I want to learn more about the boba.

     • I want to learn more about the boba green tea.

   • Imagine you have hundreds of products. It’s impossible to list all the products out as utterances. Therefore, replace the product names with a single entity to assist your chatbot’s NLU training.

2. Dialogue design: For the dialogue corresponding to the intent Product Inquiry, you can design a message that provides the menu of the shop or information about each beverage.

   • Basic answer: the “Product Introduction” message can be used for every single product on the menu.

   • You can even have a more specific response message for a certain entity.

     • Message “product_intro_bubble_tea” gives information about bubble tea.

     • Message “product_intro_bubble_green” gives information about bubble green tea.