Sample utterances

You create sample utterances that are variations of phrases that you expect users to use to initiate an intent. For example, for a BookFlight intent, you might include utterances such as the following:

1. I want to book a flight

2. help me get a flight.

3. plane tickets, please!

4. flight from {DepartureCity} to {DestinationCity}

You should provide 10 or more sample utterances. Give samples that represent a wide range of sentence structures and words that users may utter. Consider incomplete sentences as well, such as in examples 3 and 4 above. You can also use slots that you have defined for the intent in a sample utterance by wrapping curly braces around the slot name, as in {DepartureCity} in example 4. If you include slot names in a sample utterance, Amazon Lex V2 fills the slots of the intent with the values that the user provides in the utterance.

A variety of sample utterances helps Amazon Lex V2 generalize to effectively recognize that the user wants to initiate the intent.

You can add sample utterances in the intent editor, visual conversation builder, or with the CreateIntent or UpdateIntent API operations. You can also generate sample utterances automatically by taking advantage of Amazon Bedrock's generative AI capabilities. For more information, see Utterance generation.

Use the Intent editor or Visual conversation builder

1. In the Intent editor, navigate to the Sample utterances section. In the Visual conversation builder, find the Sample utterances section in the Start block.

2. In the box with the transparent text I want to book a flight, type a sample utterance. Select Add utterance to add the utterance.

3. View the sample utterances you have added in either Preview or Plain text mode. In Plain text, each line is a separate utterance. In Preview mode, hover over an utterance to reveal the following options:

   • Select the text box to edit the utterance.

   • Select the x button on the right of the text box to delete the utterance.

   • Drag the button on the left of the text box to change the order of sample utterances.

4. Use the search bar at the top to search through your sample utterances and the dropdown menu next to it to sort by the order you added the utterances or in alphabetical order.

Use an API operation

1. Create a new intent with the CreateIntent operation or update an existing one with the UpdateIntent operation.

2. The API request includes a sampleUtterances field, which maps to an array of SampleUtterance objects.

3. For each sample utterance that you want to add, append a SampleUtterance object to the array. Add the sample utterance as the value of the utterance field.

4. To edit and delete sample utterances, send an UpdateIntent request. The list of utterances you provide in the sampleUtterances field replaces the existing utterances.

   Important

   Any field that you leave blank in the UpdateIntent request will cause existing configurations in the intent to be deleted. Use the DescribeIntent operation to return the bot configuration and copy any configurations that you do not want to be deleted into the UpdateIntent request.