This presentation covers the basics of bots, chatbots and Microsoft Bot Framework. It outlines the deployment options such as Azure Bot Service.

1. DECEMBER 15
GLOBAL AI BOOTCAMP IS POWERED BY:
Build a great conversationalist using
Azure Bot Service
Radoslav Gatev

2. Thanks to our Sponsors:
Global Sponsor:
Venue Sponsor:

3. • Software Architect
• Microsoft Azure MVP
• Advisor at Microsoft Azure Research
• Blogger at www.gatevnotes.com
www.linkedin.com/in/radoslavgatev
www.twitter.com/radoslavgatev
About me

4. Agenda
• Intro to bots and chatbots
• Bot Framework basics
• Deployment options
• Bot intelligence
• Bot publishing process

5. What is a bot?
• Application that performs one or more automated tasks
• Yes, just an application ☺

6. Chat bots
• A Chatbot is a service that
you interact with via a
chat interface.

7. Chat apps are growing fast

8. Paradigm shift

9. The bot revolution

10. Why bots are the new apps?
• A lot easier to install than mobile apps.
• Easily distributed
• Mobile apps are expensive to build & maintain
• Lots of use-cases that don’t justify a mobile app.
• Messaging apps are ubiquitous
• Consumers are experiencing mobile app fatigue
• Bot interactions are intrinsically bi-directional
• Humans are hardwired for conversation

11. A few examples
• Weather bot
• Grocery bot
• News bot
• Life advice bot
• Personal finance bot
• Scheduling bot
• A bot that is your friend
• Others…

12. Bot UX matters
• Type
• Tap
• Talk

13. Types of chat bots
• Rule based
• AI based

14. But don’t make them super smart!

15. Bot Framework

16. Building bots with Redux
https://blog.botframework.com/2018/04/12/building-bots-with-redux/

17. Demo: The developer portal

18. Payments
• Works across most major platforms
• Fast and simple payment experience
• Bring commerce capabilities to your Bot
• Works with Stripe & Microsoft Seller Center

19. Architecture

20. Some interesting channels

21. Bot Connector
• Connects your bot to multiple channels
• Relays the two-way communication:
o Bot -> Channel
o Channel <- Bot

22. Bot Connector (2)

23. Bot Connector (3)
Your bot’s
endpoint
Bot
Connector
{
"type": "Message",
"id": "68YrxgtB53Y",
"conversationId": "DphPaFQrDuZlLGIjB8v18MFtb",
"language": "en",
"text": "You can say "/order" to order!",
"attachments": [ ],
"from": {
"name": "+12065551212",
"channelId": "sms",
"address": "+12065551212",
"id": "Ro52hKN287",
"isBot": false
},
"channelData": { SMS data here },
"botUserData": { your data here },
...
}

24. Bot Builder SDK Basics (1)
• Activity types
o Message
o Conversation update
o Contact relation update
o Typing
o Ping
o Delete user data
o End of conversation

25. Bot Builder SDK Basics (2)
• Message types
o Plain text
o Spoken text
o Media attachments
o Rich cards
o Adaptive cards
o Buttons

26. Bot Builder SDK Basics (3)
• Dialogs(Your web service router)
o Waterfall as a model of conversation flow
o Dialog stack(LIFO)
o Reusable
o The state is persisted
o Various types

27. Bot Builder SDK Basics (4)
• Dialogs(Your web service router)

28. Bot State Service…
• …was retired in April, 2018!
• Implement your own state service:
o In Memory Storage (for test purposes only)
o Azure Table Storage
o DocumentDB (CosmosDB)
o Custom persistence
More Info: https://blog.botframework.com/2017/12/19/bot-state-
service-will-soon-retired-march-31st-2018

30. A sample waterfall
// Ask the user for their name and greet them by name.
bot.dialog('greetings', [
function (session) {
builder.Prompts.text(session, 'Hi! What is your
name?');
},
function (session, results) {
session.endDialog('Hello ${results.response}!');
}
]);

31. Demo: Getting started on Node.js

32. Deployment options
• Azure Bot Service
o Consumption plan(Azure Functions)
• Serverless hosting
• Pay only for what you use
• Infinite autoscale*
o App Service plan(Azure web app)
• Predefined capacity
• Predictable cost
• Any reachable web location

33. Demo: Azure Bot Service
• Setting up a sample bot with Azure Bot Service

34. Let’s add some intelligence!
• Language Understanding Intelligent Service(LUIS)
o Create language understanding models
o Train them
o Publish them
o Use them
Quick demo: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive-
services/language-understanding-intelligent-service/

35. NLU Services evaluation
https://github.com/sebischair/NLU-Evaluation-Corpora

36. Demo: LUIS

37. LUIS pricing
Plan Description Price
Free 10K calls per month
Text requests ONLY
-
Standard Up to 50 calls per
second
$1.5 per 1K text requests
$5.5 per 1K speech requests

38. Imagination is the only limit

39. Cognitive services

40. Demo: Cognitive Services
• Image caption with Computer Vision API
• Wikipedia articles retrieval using Bing Web Search API & LUIS

41. Publishing your bot
• Publishing your bot via the bot directory
• Adding your bot to real channels
• Approvals

42. GDPR and Chat bots
• Add new commands:
o Delete personal data
o Export personal data

44. Some links:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/bot-framework/
https://github.com/Microsoft/BotBuilder
https://github.com/Microsoft/BotFramework-WebChat
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/bot-framework/azure-bot-service-overview
https://www.nuget.org/packages/Microsoft.Bot.Client
https://www.luis.ai/
https://dev.botframework.com/
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/try/cognitive-services/