Notes:
The development of conversational agents, also known as chatbots or virtual assistants, has a long history that dates back to the 1960s. Some of the major milestones in the timeline of conversational agents include:
- 1960s: The first conversational agents, or “ELIZA” programs, were developed by computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). ELIZA programs were designed to simulate human conversation by using pre-written scripts and simple natural language processing techniques.
- 1990s: The first chatbot platforms, such as Verbot and ALICE, were developed, allowing developers to build and deploy their own chatbots.
- 2010s: The proliferation of smartphones and the increasing use of messaging apps and social media platforms sparked a resurgence of interest in chatbots. Major tech companies, such as Apple, Microsoft, and Google, developed virtual assistants for their mobile devices, such as Siri, Cortana, and Google Assistant, respectively.
- 2020s: The use of chatbots and virtual assistants has continued to grow, with the development of more advanced natural language processing and machine learning technologies. Major conversational agents in the current market include Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Google’s Assistant, and Microsoft’s Cortana.
See also:
Conversational Expert | Conversational Recommender Systems | Conversational Systems
1980
1980 – You may have seen a similar Artificially Intelligent conversational agent, Eliza . Eliza was an AI program that came with the Apple II+ computer back in 1980. It was so good at responding to your questions that some people were fooled into thinking that Eliza … Show more
1990
Jan 8, 1990 – The second generation of Mauldin’s TinyMUD robots was Julia, created on Jan. 8, 1990. Julia slowly developed into a more and more capable conversational agent, and assumed useful duties in the TinyMUD world, including tour guide, information assistant, note… Show more
1991
1991 – She received her PhD in Computer Graphics at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA in 1991. Her research interest includes representation language for agent,embodied conversational agent, nonverbal communication (face , gaze, and gesture), emotion … Show more
2000
Apr 3, 2000 – “May I Help You?: Designing Embodied Conversational Agent Allies.” Chapter 3 in Embodied Conversational Agents. Edited by Justine Cassell, Joseph Sullivan, Scott Prevost, and Elizabeth Churchill. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, April 3, 2000, pp. 64 … Show more
2001
Mar 9, 2001 – The conversational agent for language training was developed through a three year $1.8 million National Science Foundation NSF grant Baldi could transform the way language is taught to hearing-impaired children In addition to helping students accurately produce expressive speech the …
Apr 2001 – C. Sung, S.-I. Lee and S.-B. Cho, “User modeling based on Bayesian network for effective conversational agent,” Proc. Korea Information Science Society (B), Suwon, April 2001. (In Korean …
Nov 9, 2001 – … … of the interview defendant denied killing the victim or knowing who did Defendant also denied having recently been to Morrisville or any banks in Smithfield During the second interview defendant’s demeanor changed At first defendant was conversational Agent East told defendant that …
2002
2002 – From 1998-2003 he coordinated the Oxford-Intel Project, contributing to the development of the interactive educational software, kar2ouche, which went on to win first prize from the British Computer Society in 2002. He is course director for the MSc in e … Show more
Feb 13, 2002 – eGain Communications Corporation Nasdaq EGAN a global provider of eService software today announced the release of eGain Assistant 5.0 an advanced conversational agent that can help Web site visitors solve a problem find what they’re looking for or even complete an online retail sale all …
Feb 18, 2002 – eGain Communications Corporation (NASDAQ:EGAIN), a global provider of eService software, today announced the release of eGain Assistant 5.0, an advanced conversational agent that can help Web site visitors solve a problem, find what they’re looking for or even complete an online retail …
Feb 19, 2002 – Software provider for eServices eGain Communications Corp has launched the latest version of its eGain Assistant conversational agent. Version 5.0 is designed to assist web site visitors by answering their questions, solving a problem, completing an online sale and more. …
Apr 1, 2002 – eGain Communications (egain.com) has just released Assistant 5.0, a conversational agent that can help Web site visitors search, solve problems and purchase items via typed exchanges in conversational English. The company says the new virtual agent learns faster and more efficiently …
Apr 1, 2002 – eGain Communications Corporation, a provider of e-service software, has released eGain Assistant 5.0, its advanced conversational agent designed to help Web site visitors solve a problem, find what they’re looking for or complete an online retail sale, all via typed exchanges in …
Nov 2002 – S.-R. Yang and S.-B. Cho, “Systematic evaluation of strategic coalition in the IPD game with multi-agents,” Proc. Korea Information Processing Society, Nov 2002. K.-S. Hwang and S.-B. Cho, “Evolvable hardware using ant colony system,” Proc. Korea … Show more
2003
Jun 3, 2003 – Oddcast, a New York based media technology company, develops and markets conversational agent products. The company’s flagship, the award-winning VHost( TM), allows businesses to easily employ web-based, lifelike, talking characters for marketing, E-learning and Training, …
Jul 22, 2003 – … … training organization devoted to the development and adoption of AIML Artificial Intelligence Markup Language today announced the launch of the intelligent conversational agent VHostTM on http://www.alicebots.org By combining Oddcast and ALICE technologies the Intelligent VHost breathes …
Jul 29, 2003 – … … scale to thousands of dialogs called Conversational Voice Response CVR TuVox Conversational Agent Applications can perform a wide range of tasks including natural language call routing data collection problem diagnosis stepbystep training and transaction completion TuVox customers …
Aug 21, 2003 – … … scale to thousands of dialogs called Conversational Voice Response CVR TuVox Conversational Agent Applications can perform a wide range of tasks including natural language call routing data collection problem diagnosis stepbystep training and transaction completion TuVox customers …
Aug 26, 2003 – … … scale to thousands of dialogs called Conversational Voice Response CVR TuVox Conversational Agent Applications can perform a wide range of tasks including natural language call routing data collection problem diagnosis stepbystep training and transaction completion TuVox customers …
Sep 22, 2003 – TuVox Conversational Agent Applications can perform a wide range of tasks including natural language call routing, data collection, problem diagnosis, step-by-step training, and transaction completion. TuVox customers include Activision, Handspring, TiVo and Definity Health. …
Oct 16, 2003 – … … scale to thousands of dialogs called Conversational Voice Response CVR TuVox Conversational Agent Applications can perform a wide range of tasks including natural language call routing data collection problem diagnosis step by step training and transaction completion TuVox customers …
Nov 8, 2003 – Meet In CA Internet Conversational Agent a pocket-sized helper who recognises natural language and talks back incorporating some familiar gestures too. Talking machines have long been a staple of sci-fi but Sydney researchers have used today’s off the shelf products to convert an ordinary …
2004
Jan 27, 2004 – Mit dem interaktiven Dialogsystem Conversational Agent können Autofahrer per Sprache unter anderem EMails bearbeiten navigieren oder die Klimaanlage steuern ohne die Hand vom Lenkrad nehmen zu müssen Wenn diese autonome Telematik Anwendung dem Fahrer etwa per Sprache Anweisungen zur …
Feb 9, 2004 – TuVox Conversational Agent Applications can perform a wide range of tasks including natural language call routing, data collection, problem diagnosis, step-by-step training, and transaction completion. TuVox customers include Activision, Handspring, TiVo, MCI and Definity Health. …
Feb 11, 2004 – TuVox Conversational Agent Applications can perform a wide range of tasks including natural language call routing, data collection, problem diagnosis, step-by-step training, and transaction completion. TuVox customers include Activision, Handspring, TiVo, MCI and Definity Health. …
Feb 23, 2004 – Einen spannenden Blick in die Forschungszentren von IBM können die Besucher wie jedes Jahr in der “Innovation Zone auf dem Hauptstand werfen Mit dem interaktiven Dialogsystem Conversational Agent können Autofahrer per Sprache unter anderem EMails bearbeiten navigieren oder die …
May 31, 2004 – Researchers at the company are not entirely at ease with the artificial passenger nomenclature, preferring ”conversational agent” when a reporter visited recently. The name Christie was assigned to the system’s voice for a demonstration of a simulated trip from Connecticut to catch a …
Jun 3, 2004 – Researchers at the company are not entirely at ease with the artificial passenger nomenclature preferring conversational agent when a reporter visited recently The name Christie was assigned to the system’s voice for a demonstration of a simulated trip from Connecticut to catch a flight …
Jul 29, 2004 – … … 2001 Researchers at the company are not entirely at ease with the artificial passenger nomenclature preferring conversational agent when a reporter visited recently The name Christie was assigned to the system’s voice for a demonstration of a simulated trip from Connecticut to catch …
Oct 1, 2004 – … … modules Labels for these modules are presented in the left banner of the HURAA web page The main display area in the middle of Figure 1 describes primary modules of HURAA The interchange between the user and the HURAA is managed by an animated conversational agent see upper left …
2005
May 16, 2005 – The announcement last week that small ISV Oddcast which develops a conversational agent software called avatars will be developing applications for cell phones using the Macromedia Flash development environment may help initiate a new era of easy to use mobile applications …
Jun 22, 2005 – In theory, a conversational agent engaged in a teaching dialog should function identically to a human teacher or tutor. In developing an agent attitude scale, however, each institution uses it’s own instructor rating scale; there is no single widely accepted or widely used scale upon …
Sep 2005 – Stefan Kopp, Lars Gesellensetter, Nicole Krämer, Ipke Wachsmuth, A Conversational Agent as Museum Guide – Design and Evaluation of a Real-World Application , The 5th International Working Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA’05), Springer … Show more
Nov 2005 – C. Pelachaud, Multimodal expressive embodied conversational agent, ACM Multimedia, Brave New Topics session, Singapore, November 2005. PDF.
Nov 2005 – She was instrumental in bringing Sacramento State and the UC Davis Cancer Center together in a partnership to reduce disparities in cancer prevention and control that was formalized in November 2005 with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Show more
2006
May 7, 2006 – Alex is a virtual peer or in computer jargon an embodied conversational agent an animated computer graphic that talks and interacts with children The girls McKenna Young 7 and her sister Kaleigh 9 aren’t very talkative at first but later open up and tell longer versions of what they …
May 7, 2006 – Numack is a so called embodied conversational agent He’s being programmed to give visitors directions around Northwestern Researchers have studied how real people give directions including how they might reference nearby landmarks Pass the library on your left or other details If you …
Jun 15, 2006 – The tone was calm and conversational. Agent Jorgensen then left and told the other agents he had received consent. Marijuana was found drying in the lean-to, items were found in a black mustang, and items of clothing shown in the video were found in the house. …
Jul 31, 2006 – … … through the tone of voice or facial expression in a speaking audio visual conversational agent and AI systems that do some reasoning about emotions For example an AI system might need to infer the appropriate emotion to simulate in a given situation or anticipate the emotion of a user …
Sep 5, 2006 – George is a conversational agent, otherwise known as a chatbot. He is a language -learning artificial Intelligence, able to interpret and imitate the written responses of a real human being. “He’s strong-minded and ‘smart’, yet shows empathy towards his chat partner, and is not too …
2007
Apr 16, 2007 – … … Autotutor project at University of Memphis US Autotutor is ananimated conversational agent with synthesised speech gestures and facial expressions that display emotions It questions poses problems and engages the student in a mixed initiative dialogue while he/she constructs an answer …
Oct 27, 2007 – Cassell is recognized in the field of Computer Science for her development of the Embodied Conversational Agent (ECA), a virtual human capable of interacting with humans using interactive and non-verbal behavior. Cassell has investigated the role that the ECA can play in children’s …
Nov 8, 2007 – To bring life to Interactive Digital Assistants from Umanify a startup company Loquendo News Alert has been chosen to provide their speech recognition and text to speech engines to power Umanify’s umanServer Enterprise 2.6 conversational agent’s platform …
2008
Feb 7, 2008 – “Next IT’s conversational agent provides a new, enhanced way for Web users to interact with companies online,” said Fred Brown, Next IT’s president and chief executive officer. “Alaska and Horizon had the vision to see how this technology could improve service to their customers online …
Feb 15, 2008 – A virtual talking head or embodied conversational agent nicknamed Baldi by its creators is one of the latest technologies being used to teach language skills to autistic kids Dominic Massaro PhD a language researcher at the University of California Santa Cruz demonstrated Baldi at this …
Mar 3, 2008 – Providing sophisticated conversational agent capabilities, RealDialog engages users in rich dialogs to uncover their needs, and respond to them with precise and personalized responses – including direct text responses, multimedia, and data retrieved from other systems. …
Mar 5, 2008 – By delivering precise and accurate information in a high quality cost effective manner Astute Solutions RealDialog™ offers a true selfservice solution It is a Web based conversational agent system for enterprise knowledge management and selfservice that enables end users Web site visitors …
Apr 22, 2008 – GRETA – an embodied conversational agent. Looking on are Prof Roddy Cowie of Queen’s and Prof Maja Pantic from the University of Twente in Holland ‘SEMAINE and projects like it will change the way people interact with technology. They mean that you will be talking to your computer in …
May 15, 2008 – The award winner in the Leadership category, Cassell is recognized in the field of computer science for her development of the Embodied Conversational Agent ( ECA), a virtual human capable of interacting with humans using both verbal and non-verbal behavior. Cassell has investigated the …
2009
Feb 23, 2009 – Through an automated conversational agent on a company’s Web site, Intranet or contact center application, RealDialog delivers a clear, specific and accurate answer to a customer’s question-versus a long list of search results or frequently asked questions (FAQs). …
Mar 3, 2009 – Through an automated conversational agent on a company’s Web site, Intranet or contact center application, RealDialog interprets the meaning behind customers’ questions entered in their natural language–including the use of pronouns, slang and company/product/industry specific …
Oct 23, 2009 – What are the risks One has already been mentioned authentication How can you know who you are communicating with That can be challenging Actually you may not be talking to a human at all but a chatbot According to Wikipedia a chatbot is a type of conversational agent a computer program …
Nov 2009 – This is the video that was produced for the midterm presentation of the master project “Con-Action” at the University of Bremen and the University of Fine Arts , Bremen in November 2009. It shows the pretest of an experiment about the impact of the character … Show more
Nov 7, 2009 – In working with people 65 and older Gilbert and colleagues found seniors actually enjoyed chatting online a lot he said, We decided to design a system that used a conversational agent an avatar a talking head that actually assisted them in navigating a Web site …
2010
Apr 5, 2010 – In particular, Cassell is credited with developing the Embodied Conversational Agent (ECA), a virtual human capable of interacting with humans using both language and nonverbal behavior. More recently Cassell has investigated the role that the ECA can play in children’s lives as a …
May 19, 2010 – Clarkson said that in the event that the virtual conversational agent is not able answer a particular question the agent has the ability to escalate the conversation to live help Clarkson emphasized however that the cost of a virtual agent providing answers to questions from online …
May 27, 2010 – Named “Louise” – a second version is called “Elizabeth” – the computer animation is in computer jargon an “Embodied Conversational Agent.” Using the patients’ discharge plans and medical records, Louise enabled patients to take their time to truly understand their medications, …
Jun 3, 2010 – Stelarc The Thinking Head is effectively an embodied conversational agent so it’s an artificially intelligent agent it has a database a conversational system you can ask the Head a question and it will respond to you and this fiveyear Australian Research Council funded project which is …
Jun 3, 2010 – Stelarc The thinking head is effectively an embodied conversational agent so it’s an artificiallyintelligent agent it has a database a conversational system you can ask the head a question and it will respond to you and I guess in this case two heads are better than one right Youve got …