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CORDIS

Conversational Systems for Emotional Support and Customer Assistance

Project description

Advanced conversational systems for human-machine interactions

Emotional support is vital for the well-being of vulnerable individuals, including older adults and those experiencing anxiety or depression. In call centres, empathetic and efficient customer assistance can provide significant benefits. Large language models (LLMs) and prompt engineering techniques enable the development of innovative systems to enhance human-machine interactions. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the CRYSTAL project aims to create advanced conversational models and systems designed for reliable, friendly and efficient interactions. These systems will go beyond providing information to offer emotional support and customer assistance. Key features include innovative learning strategies for domain adaptation, advancements in LLMs and prompt engineering. Additionally, user state estimation will inform dialogue management through behavioural models.

Objective

CRYSTAL (Conversational Systems for Emotional Support and Customer Assistance) will advance research for a next generation of conversational models and systems that implement reliable, friendly and efficient human-machine interactions that can assist humans in tasks beyond automatic information provision, such as emotional support as well as customer assistance. Emotional support provided to vulnerable individuals, such as ageing adults or people experiencing anxiety or depression. Advanced customer assistance provided to call centres, providing customer care and response to customer inquiries, in an empathic, inviting, accurate and efficient manner.

Conversational models and systems will be developed by proposing novel learning strategies for domain adaptation, exploring Large Language Models (LLMs) and prompt engineering methodologies. User state estimation will be also considered, and strategies, such as behavioural models and stakeholder goals, will guide the policies for dialogue management. Novel evaluation frameworks will be also designed by including automatic metrics, usability as well as human acceptance of the technology.

Strict ethical and AI robustness compliance procedures will be applied, as conversational recordings will be collected, anonymised, annotated and encrypted for collaborative work among the project partners.

The project will apply extensive staff secondments and foster sustainable knowledge exchange. It will grow the experiences and insights of the partner organisations’ staff via intersectoral and interdisciplinary collaborations, implemented through secondments as well as training and networking activities. Dissemination, communication and exploitation activities will expand the project’s impact pathways.

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Topic(s)

Funding Scheme

HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-SE - HORIZON TMA MSCA Staff Exchanges

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Call for proposal

(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2023-SE-01

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Coordinator

UNIVERSIDAD DEL PAIS VASCO/ EUSKAL HERRIKO UNIBERTSITATEA
Net EU contribution
€ 151 800,00
Address
BARRIO SARRIENA S N
48940 Leioa
Spain
Region
Noreste País Vasco Bizkaia
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost
No data

Participants (6)

Partners (3)