Dialogue Elements

Dialogue elements are common conversation patterns. We use three different levels of abstraction to discuss AI assistants. This can be helpful in a product team, so that you have a common language which designers, developers, and product owners can use to discuss issues and new features.

  • highest level: user goals
  • middle level: dialogue elements
  • lowest level: intents, entities, actions, slots, and templates.


Some chatbot tools use the word intent to refer to the user goal. This is confusing because only some messages tell you what a user’s goal is. If a user says “I want to open an account” (intent: open_account), that is clearly their goal. But most user messages (“yes”, “what does that mean?”, “I don’t know”) aren’t specific to one goal. In Rasa, every message has an intent, and a user goal describes what a person wants to achieve.