6.3.1.1. Intents and Utterances

6.3.1.1. Intents and Utterances

Intents represent what the user wants to accomplish—their goal or purpose. Utterances are the actual phrases users say to express those intents. CLU learns to map utterances to intents.

Example:

• Intent: BookFlight
• Utterances: "I want to fly to Paris", "Book me a ticket to France", "Need a flight tomorrow"

Best practices:

• 15+ utterances per intent minimum (50+ for production)
• Vary phrasing, word order, and vocabulary
• Include the "None" intent for out-of-scope queries
• Balance utterance counts across intents

The None intent is critical: Without it, CLU will force-match every input to a defined intent, even nonsense queries.