A framework for natural language agents

Speech technology has been moving ever increasingly into the domain of the everyday computer user. Computer users would use speech technology more readily if they could speak to the machine like they could talk to another person. With advances in visual agent and natural language technologies, this concept is already a possibility. In this paper, we present some ideas about a framework of a type of user interface agent known as a natural language agent which combines spoken language understanding and visual agent technologies into a simple to use computer interface. Preliminary results of two experimental agents based on the framework are discussed. Future work on creating complete natural language agent systems is also included.