12.4 Creating an Agent-Driven Chatbot

Create a chatbot using an agent to answer questions and fulfill user requests.

To create a chatbot, use the Show AI Assistant dynamic action, typically on page load or in response to a button click. It can open its own dialog window, or you can point it at a Static Content region in your page as an inline display area. In either case, at runtime a welcome message greets the end user and they can begin asking questions. The display is familiar to anyone who has used a messaging app. The end user and the bot chat in an alternating timeline of question and answer speech bubbles, each marked with an avatar icon.

As shown below, choose an Agent in the Generative AI section to handle the chatbot's conversation and decide whether it will Display As a dialog or inline. The agent's prompt and tools offer users a more complete and effective experience. You can also configure the dynamic action to use a Generative AI Service directly when the chatbot only needs a prompt.

Tip:

To configure the avatar icons or images that represent the AI service and the end user, visit the Shared Components > Component Settings > Show AI Assistant in your application and adjust the respective settings.

Figure 12-18 Showing an AI Assistant Dialog Using a Trigger Action on a Button

Description of "Figure 12-18 Showing an AI Assistant Dialog Using a Trigger Action on a Button"

To create a custom chatbot experience, you can:

• engage the AI service with the CHAT() function in the APEX_AI package,
• store questions and responses in a collection using the APEX_COLLECTION package, and
• display the conversation by combining a Comments region with the APEX_COLLECTIONS view.