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SVR304

bots + serverless = Vishal Singh, Senior Product Manager,

AWS Lambda

December 1, 2016

What to Expect from the Session

• Introduction to Serverless Chatbots

• Frameworks and integrations for serverless chatbots

• AWS Slack chatbot hackathon summary

• Amazon Lex

• Architecture & benefits

• Demo – building a Facebook chatbot using Lex + Lambda

• Mobile Hub enterprise SaaS connectors

Introduction to Serverless

Chatbots

Chatbots

Chatbot is a service designed to simulate conversation with

human users, accessible from a messaging interface.

Key characteristics:

On-demand

Accessible

Efficient

Natural

AWS Lambda: Run code in response to events

COMPUTE SERVICE

EVENT DRIVEN

Run arbitrary

code without

managing

servers

Code only runs

when it needs to

run

Code is all you need Event-driven scaling

Never pay for idle Availability and fault tolerance built in

Benefits of AWS Lambda

Amazon API Gateway: Serverless APIs

Internet

Mobile apps

Websites

Services

AWS Lambda

functions

AWS

API Gateway

cache

Endpoints on

Amazon EC2

Any other publicly

accessible endpointAmazon

CloudWatch

Amazon

CloudFrontAmazon

API Gateway

Benefits of Amazon API Gateway

Create a unified API

frontend for multiple

microservices

DDoS protection

and throttling for

your back end

Authenticate and

authorize requests

to a back end

Serverless Apps

EVENT SOURCE FUNCTION SERVICES (ANYTHING)

Changes in

data state

Requests to

endpoints

Changes in

resource state

Node

Python

Java

C# NEW!

The Serverless Chatbot

Internet

Any

Messaging

app

AWS Lambda

functions

AWS

API Gateway Other AWS

services

Any other publicly

accessible endpoint

Webhook using API Gateway & AWS Lambda

Things to Note

Intent resolution: Language understanding is handled by

the Lambda function using NLP libraries

Authentication: API Gateway authenticates the incoming

requests before passing to Lambda.

Partner integrations:

• Slack (blueprints available!)

• Twilio

• Hipchat

Building Chatbots with Serverless

1.Upload Bot code to AWS

Lambda

2.Set code to trigger when user

interacts via API Gateway

webhook

3.Integrate with Messaging

service

4.Test your chatbots

Frameworks and Integrations

for Chatbots

Frameworks and Integrations for Serverless

Chatbots

AWS SAM – AWS Serverless Application Model

• Specification to express a serverless chatbot application

• Helps in quickly deploying your application via

CloudFormation

Other community frameworks:

• Claudia-bot-builder – Node open source framework

• Serverless.com – Serverless framework

NEW !

+NEW !

NEW !

AWS Slack Chatbot Hackathon

Summary

AWS Slack Chatbot Hackathon Summary

• 2 months virtual

hackathon

(Aug10–Sept29 ‘16)

• 650+ registrations

• ~70 submissions

• Using various

frameworks,

libraries, open

source and more

https://awschatbot.devpost.com/submissions

Hackathon Popular Chatbot Use Cases

• ChatOps

• Education

• Social

• Translation

• Travel

• Trivia

• Polls/quiz

• Knowledge Base

• Many more…

AWS Slack Hackathon Winners -

Congratulations!

Chatbots Architectural Recommendations

• Authentication and authorization

• Sigv4, Amazon Cognito, custom authorizers

• Lambda execution role

• Environment variables

• Encrypt your secrets

• Persistence of state & sessions

• DDB, S3, or any data store

• Reuse bot logic across messaging platforms

NEW !

Developer Challenges

Conversational interfaces need to combine a large number of

sophisticated algorithms and technologies

Business Logic

Disparate

Systems

AuthenticationSpeech

Recognition Language

UnderstandingMessaging

Platforms

Scale Testing

Security

Availability

Mobile

Amazon Lex

Amazon Lex Features

Text and speech language understanding: powered by the same technology as

Alexa

Enterprise SaaS connectors: connect to enterprise systems

Deployment to chat services

Designed for builders: efficient and intuitive tools to build

conversations; scales automatically

Versioning and alias support@

Text and Speech Language Understanding

Speech

Recognition

Natural Language

Understanding

Powered by the same Deep Learning technology as Alexa

Deployment to Chat Services

Facebook

Messenger

Mobile

Card Description

Button 1

Button 2

Button 3

Card

Description

Option 1

Option 2

Authentication

Rich FormattingOne-Click Deployment

Amazon Lex

Designed for Builders

Efficient and intuitive tools to build conversations

Versioning and Alias Support

AliasVersioning

• Supported for Intents, Slots, and Bots

• Enables multi-developer environment

• Roll back to previous versions

• Deploy different aliases to different platforms

• Run different stacks for dev, stage, and prod environments

• Target different user groups with different aliases

v1 v2 v3 latest

v1 Dev

v2 Stage

v3 Prod

Lex Bot Structure

Utterances

Spoken or typed phrases that invoke

your intent

BookHotel

Intents

An intent performs an action in

response to natural language user

input

Slots

Slots are input data required to fulfill

the intent

Fulfillment

Fulfillment mechanism for your intent

Utterances

I’d like to book a hotel

I want to make my hotel reservations

I want to book a hotel in New York City

Can you help me book my hotel?

Slots

destination City New York City, Seattle, London, …

Slot Type Values

Check In Date Valid dates

Check Out Date Valid dates

Slot Elicitation

I’d like to book a hotel

What date do you check in?

New York City

Sure what city do you want to book?

Nov 30th Check In

11/30/2016

City

New York City

Fulfillment

AWS Lambda

Integration

Return to

Client

User input parsed to derive

intents and slot values.

Output returned to client for

further processing.

Intents and slots passed to

AWS Lambda function for

business logic

implementation.

“Book a Hotel”

Book Hotel

NYC

“Book a Hotel in

NYC”

Hotel Booking

New York City

Natural Language

Understanding

Intent/Slot

Model

UtterancesHotel Booking

City New York City

Check In Nov 30th

Check Out Dec 2nd

“Your hotel is booked for

Nov 30th”

Confirmation: “Your hotel

is booked for Nov 30th”

“Can I go ahead

with the booking?

a

in

User

interacts with

Chabot

Confirmation

Save, Build, and Publish

Save Build

Saving your bot

preserves the current

state on the server

Building your bot

creates versions

that you can test.

Publish

Publishing your app will create a

version of your bot and provide

an alias to your clients

Test

Test your bot in a

chat window on the

Console

Monitoring

Track your bot

Request Latency

Missed Utterance Count

Amazon Lex Technology

Amazon Lex

Automatic Speech

Recognition (ASR)

Natural Language

Understanding (NLU)

Same technology that powers Alexa

Amazon Cognito CloudTrail CloudWatch

AWS Services

ActionAWS Lambda

Authentication

& Visibility

Speech

APILanguage

API

Fulfillment

End Users

Developers

Console

SDK

Intents,

Slots,

Prompts,

Utterances

Speech or

Text Input

Multi-Platform Clients:

Mobile, IoT, Web,

Chat

API

Demo

Build a FB “Moviepedia” chatbot using Lex + Lambda

Amazon Lex Use Cases

Informational BotsChatbots for everyday consumer requests

Application BotsBuild powerful interfaces to mobile applications

• News updates

• Weather information

• Game scores ….

• Book tickets

• Order food

• Manage bank accounts ….

Enterprise Productivity BotsStreamline enterprise work activities and improve efficiencies

• Check sales numbers

• Marketing performance

• Inventory status ….

Internet of Things (IoT) BotsEnable conversational interfaces for device interactions

• Wearables

• Appliances

• Auto ….

Amazon Lex Benefits

High quality text and speech language

understanding

Built-in integration with the AWS platform

Seamlessly deploy and scale

Easy to use

Cost-effective

Mobile Hub + Enterprise SaaS

Connectors

AWS Mobile Hub Integration

Authenticate users

Analyze user behavior

Store and share media

Synchronize data

More ….Track retention

Conversational BotsLexAWS Mobile SDKs

AWS Mobile Hub

Enterprise SaaS Connectors with Mobile Hub

Mobile Hub

SaaS Connector

Amazon API

Gateway

AWS

Lambda

Amazon API

GatewayAWS

Lambda

Mobile Hub

Custom Connector

Mobile App Amazon Lex

AWS

Lambda

Business

Application

Firewall

Enterprise SaaS Connectors with Mobile Hub

Amazon Lex

Mobile App

Mobile Hub

SaaS Connector

Amazon API

Gateway

AWS

Lambda

1: Understand

user intent

Amazon API

Gateway

AWS

Lambda

3: Translate

REST response

into natural

languageMobile Hub

Custom Connector

2: Invoke a SaaS

application or an existing

business application

Business

Application

Firewall

User Input

Recap

• First, we looked into creating chatbots as serverless

webhooks using AWS Lambda and API Gateway

• Next, we added natural language intelligence to your

chatbots using Amazon Lex and AWS Lambda

• Finally, we looked at mobile hub integration and

enterprise SaaS connectors to enrich your chatbot with

enterprise data

Key Takeaway: Register for the Preview @

aws.amazon.com/lex

Sign-Up & Whitelist

Build your first serverless chatbot using samples in

Lex and Lambda blueprints!

✔✔✔

Thank you!

Remember to complete

your evaluations!