How To Create an Intelligent Chatbot in Python Using the spaCy NLP Library

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Introduction

Interacting with software can be a daunting task in cases where there are a lot of features. In some cases, performing similar actions requires repeating steps, like navigating menus or filling forms each time an action is performed. Chatbots are virtual assistants that help users of a software system access information or perform actions without having to go through long processes. Many of these assistants are conversational, and that provides a more natural way to interact with the system.

To create a conversational chatbot, you could use platforms like Dialogflow that help you design chatbots at a high level. Or, you can build one yourself using a library like spaCy, which is a fast and robust Python-based natural language processing (NLP) library. spaCy provides helpful features like determining the parts of speech that words belong to in a statement, finding how similar two statements are in meaning, and so on.

In this tutorial, you will create a chatbot that not only helps users simplify their interactions with a software system, but is also intelligent enough to communicate with the user in natural language (American English in this tutorial). The chatbot will use the OpenWeather API to tell the user what the current weather is in any city of the world, but you can implement your chatbot to handle a use case with another API.