US Patent 11508372 Natural language input routing

Techniques for performing runtime ranking of skill components are described. A skill developer may generate a rule indicating a skill component is to be invoked at runtime when a natural language input corresponds to a specific context. At runtime, a virtual assistant system may implement a machine learned model to generate an initial ranking of skill components. Thereafter, the virtual assistant system may use skill component-specific rules to adjust the initial ranking, and this second ranking is used to determine which skill component to invoke to respond to the natural language input. Overtime, if a rule results in beneficial user experiences, the virtual assistant system may incorporate the rule into the machine learned model.