Ecosystem for providing responses to user queries entered via a conversational interface

An improved method for providing an answer a user question input to a computer system by a user, the computer system having access to a distributed system of networked data providers having respective Application Program Interfaces (APIs), the method comprising the steps of:

• accessing a library of predefined questions, each predefined question having a text alias and being associated with a respective API for the data provider from which information to answer the respective predefined question can be obtained;
• accessing a library of API definitions, each API definition specifying for the API respective attributes including an input format and at least one general input token;
• selecting from the library of predefined questions a first set of predefined questions based on access rights of the user;
• generating a text query from the user question;
• identifying for the text query a matched question in the first set of predefined questions by:
• (a) initiating a first computing thread operating to (i) determine respective string match scores for predefined questions in the first set, each respective string match score indicating a measure of similarity between the text query and the text alias for the respective predefined question, and (ii) select as the matching question the predefined question having the highest respective string match score exceeding a string match threshold;
• (b) initiating a second computing thread operating to (i) determine respective API match scores for predefined questions in the first set, each respective API match score being a function of content in the text query and attributes of the respective API associated with the respective predefined questions, and (ii) select as the matching question the predefined question based on the respective API match scores;
• in response to the earlier of matching question selection by the first computing thread and matching question selection by the second computing thread issuing a data request to the respective API for the matching question, the data request being in the respective predefined input format and including data derived from text query content as a value for a first general input token of the respective API;
• receiving a reply to the data request;
• outputting the answer in a predefined format and containing information extracted from the reply.

A computer system for providing an answer to a user question submitted to the system by a user, the system comprising:

• a computer processor;
• an Input/Output (IO) system in communication with the computer processor and connectable to a network providing communication access to remote devices;
• a machine readable memory and a data store;
• the data store comprising:
• predefined question definitions, each question definition specifying respective a text alias for the predefined question and an Application Program Interface (API) for the respective data provider from which information to answer the respective predefined question can be obtained;
• and
• API definitions, each respective API definition specifying respective attributes including an input format and at least one general input token for the API;
• the machine readable memory holding computer program code comprising:
• input query processing code to configure the processor to generate a text query from the user question;
• matching question selection code comprising:
• (i) query string matching code to configure the processor to determine for a first set of predefined questions respective string match scores indicating a measure of similarity between the text query and the text alias for the respective predefined question and select as the matching question the predefined question having the highest respective string match score if any strong match scores exceed a string match threshold;
• and
• (ii) query API matching code to configure the processor to determine for predefined questions in the first set of predefined questions respective API match scores using an as a function of content in the text query and attributes of the respective API associated with the respective predefined question and select the matching question from the first set of predefined questions based on the respective API match scores;
• API interface code to configure the processor to generate for the earliest selected matching question from the query string matching code and the query API matching code a data request in the predefined input format for the respective API associated with the matching question and having as a value for a first general input token of the respective API data derived from text query content and cause the processor to send via the IO system the data request using the respective API;
• and
• answer builder code to configure the processor to receive a reply to the data request and to generate the answer to the user inquiry, the answer including information from the reply, and to output the answer to the user via the IO system.