Dialogflow

This is actually a tool outside of GCP and has its origins in a product called Api.ai. It was developed to perform human-to-computer interaction using natural language processing.

It allows you to create so-called agents and intents that have definite possible conversation scenarios. Dialogflow is able to train itself on possible variations of phrases that the user uses to demonstrate particular intent. The more phrases that are provided, the better it can learn to trigger the intent:

Figure 14.19 – Dialogflow (Source: https://cloud.google.com/dialogflow/docs/intents-overview. License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

When a user calls an intent, the agent can answer with a simple response, or more advanced actions can take place. For example, an intent can be analyzed in relation to defined parameters.

The parameters can get extracted and passed to so-called fulfillment, which is basically Firebase functions. The developer...