Word of the Day: natural language understanding (NLU)

Word of the Day Daily updates on the latest technology terms | December 13, 2018 natural language understanding (NLU) Natural language understanding (NLU) is a branch of artificial intelligence (AI) that uses computer software to understand input made in the form of sentences in text or speech format. The field of NLU is an important and challenging subset of natural language processing (NLP). While both understand human language, NLU is tasked with communicating with untrained individuals and understanding their intent. NLU uses algorithms to reduce human speech into a structured ontology. AI fishes out such things as intent, timing, locations and sentiments. For example, a request for an island camping trip on Vancouver Island on the 18th of August might break down something like this: Ferry tickets [intent] / need: camping lot reservation [intent] / Vancouver Island [location] / August 18th [date]. The main drive behind NLU is to create chat and speech enabled bots that can interact effectively with the public without supervision. NLU is a pursuit of many start up and major IT companies. Companies working on NLU include Medium's Lola, Amazon's with Alexis and Lex, Apple's Siri, Google's Assistant and Microsoft's Cortana. Quote of the Day "NLP and NLU technologies are becoming more prominent in the enterprise. The former simply parses words, but the latter aims at a deeper level of understanding." - Kathleen Walch Trending Terms human-computer interaction natural language natural language processing speech recognition AI natural language generation Learning Center Knowledge graph applications in the enterprise gain steam Knowledge graph applications can be technically challenging and time-consuming to build, but enterprises are starting to find that the work can lead to positive returns. NLP vs. NLU and the growing ability of machines to understand In the question of NLP vs. NLU, the difference comes down to the use of machine learning to understand human text and speech at deep levels. With that level of understanding, the possibilities are limitless. Call center automation advances, but only as far as NLP can take it Call center automation is changing customer service and enriching survey efforts, but strides forward hinge on natural language processing improvements. Words to go: Amazon AI services Use this quick rundown of key Amazon AI tools to push the boundaries of your cloud applications with machine and deep learning technology. The role of voice technology in IoT expands beyond consumers Learn how three companies are bringing voice technology to all aspects of IoT, from automotive to consumer to manufacturing. Quiz Yourself Some employees fear that computers will take over their jobs with the _______ of machine learning, but that is not the case. A. raise B. rise Answer Stay in Touch For feedback about any of our definitions or to suggest a new definition, please contact me at: mrouse@techtarget.com Visit the Word of the Day Archives and catch up on what you've missed! FOLLOW US About This E-Newsletter This e-newsletter is published by the TechTarget network. To unsubscribe from Whatis.com, click here. Please note, this will not affect any other subscriptions you have signed up for. TechTarget, Whatis, 275 Grove Street, Newton, MA 02466. Contact: webmaster@techtarget.com Copyright 2018 TechTarget. All rights reserved.