Spoken dialogue system

It is the umbrella term from telephony and research; in German-language tenders it appears as “Sprachdialogsystem”. It covers phone menus (IVR), voicebots, voice assistants in cars and AI phone assistants. What they share is the sequence: recognise speech, determine the meaning, choose the next step, output a reply. Where needed, access to data is added, for instance to a customer account or a calendar.

Systems are distinguished by who leads the dialogue. System-led dialogues ask one question after another and expect short answers. Mixed-initiative dialogues allow callers to give several details at once or to change the subject. With large language models, the second form has become the normal case. Tenders and texts from public authorities still mostly use the older term, even when an AI phone assistant is meant. That changes nothing about the requirements: what counts is which dialogues the system is supposed to conduct.