Extending Domain Coverage of Language Understanding Systems via Intent Transfer Between Domains Using Knowledge Graphs and Search Query Click Logs

This paper proposes a new technique to enable Natural Language Understanding (NLU) systems to handle user queries beyond their original semantic schemas defined by their intents and slots. Knowledge graph and search query logs are used to extend NLU system’s coverage by transferring intents from other domains to a given domain. The transferred intents as well as existing intents are then applied to a set of new slots that they are not trained with. The knowledge graph and search click logs are used to determine whether the new slots (i.e. entities) or their attributes in the graph can be used together with the new intents without re-training the underlying NLU models with the expanded (i.e. with new intents and slots) schema. Experimental results show that the proposed technique can in fact be used in extending NLU system’s domain coverage in fulfilling the user’s request.