Conversational agent as kitchen assistant

Abstract: Chatbots, also called conversational agents, with speech interfaces are being used to a greater and greater extent, but there are still many areas that are not completely explored. The idea of this project was born out of the belief that there is a need for an assistant in the kitchen that is able to search for recipes, answer questions regarding them and guide and assist the user throughout the cooking process, all through conversation since the hands are busy. This paper begins with an introduction in the subject of conversational agents and the related technology, then similar, already existing studies and methods are presented with their pros and cons. After follows an in-depth explanation on how the program was constructed into a working kitchen assistant. Lastly, the users’ experiences of the performance and usability of the program was evaluated through tests and discussed. It turns out that conversational agents definitely can be integrated in the kitchen, and according to several sources, in a few years they will be implemented in all possible areas and change the technology of our time.