Amazon Lex
Overview
Lex provides natural language chatbot capability. It is based on the same technology as Amazon Alexa. With Lex a user can communicate by voice as part of a conversation to achieve their desired goal or intent. Lex analyses what the user says, this is termed an utterance. From a few text examples Lex can understand the many different ways a person can say something with the same meaning. By understanding the user utterance and user intent Lex can choose the appropriate action to take.
- AWS docs: https://aws.amazon.com/lex/
- AWS FAQs: https://aws.amazon.com/lex/faqs
Video: Amazon Lex – Quickly Build Conversational Interfaces
Lex terminology
| Lex terminology | Description |
|---|---|
| intent | An intent performs an action based on natural language user input |
| utterance | Utterances are spoken or typed phrases to trigger the intent |
| slot | Slots are data inputs from the user need for the intent |
| slot type | The data type of the slot |
| fulfillment | fulfillment of the original user intent |
Key features
- High quality speech recognition and natural language understanding
- Multi-turn conversations
- Context Management
- Utility Prompts
- Integration with AWS Lambda
- Connect to Enterprise Systems
- One-click Deployment to Multiple Platforms
- Powerful Lifecycle Management Capabilities
- Intent Chaining
- 8 kHz Telephony Audio Support
Integration with other AWS services
| Amazon AI service | Description of integration |
|---|---|
| Amazon Kendra | Amazon Kendra can provide a search feature to satisfy a user intent. This can identify documents that provide the answers to the users questions. |
| Amazon Poly | Integrating with Amazon Poly alows Lex to ask questions and give answers in natural speach when a users is interacting through a phone service, rather than text. |
| Amazon Lambda | The integration with Amazon Lambda allows Lex to trigger computational logic to interface with business systems to fulfil services and invoke actions for the user. |
| Amazon Connect | Lex is integrated into Amazon Connect which is the AWS Contact centre service. |
| Amazon Chime SDK | Lex integrates with Amazon Chime SDK which can add audio calling, video calling, and screen sharing capabilities to their own web, mobile or telephony applications. |
Use cases
- Call Center Chatbots and Voice Assistants
- Application Bots
- QnA Bots and Informational Bots. These bots help customers with their purchases or other interactions by providing information and answering questions
- Enterprise Productivity Bots
Video: Introduction to Conversation Design with Amazon Lex | AWS Events
Credits
- Photo by Pavan Trikutam on Unsplash
