Patent attributes
This invention provides programmable intelligent agents that facilitate and manage voice or video conversations between human users and chatbots over the Internet or the Public Switched Telephone Network. Functions of said intelligent agents include providing the communication connectivity, coordinating the human-chatbot conversation, reacting and responding to the human user's conversational behavior, and in certain applications, sending controlling signals to peripheral devices according to intents of the conversation, or receiving data from peripheral sensors as references to alter the course of the conversation. Furthermore, a said intelligent agent can serve as a user interface that enables human users in the vicinity of the intelligent agent to engage in an interactive three-way conversation with a chatbot and remote human users.