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Enhancing Deepgram Agent Responses with Intermediate Acknowledgements

In conversational AI, providing an interactive and engaging user experience involves not only understanding user commands but also managing response timing effectively. Often, when users input a command that triggers a processing task, they might be left wondering if their command was heard while the processing takes place.

Enhancing User Engagement

A suggested approach to enhance Deepgram's voice agent's capabilities is by mimicking more natural human-like conversational patterns through a two-part response process when handling function callbacks.

Proposed Solution

1. Initial Acknowledgement:

After receiving a user command such as "Record my weight of 80 kilos," the agent should first provide an immediate acknowledgment with a response like "Sure, just give me a moment."

2. Completion Confirmation:

Once the backend processing (e.g., storing the weight) is complete, the agent should confirm the task completion with a response like "Okay, your weight of 80 kilos has been recorded."

This approach helps reduce the uncertainty users may feel during short processing delays, enhancing their overall experience.

Implementation with InjectAgentMessage

To implement this behavior, Deepgram provides the InjectAgentMessage feature, which allows developers to inject messages from the agent at precise moments during the interaction.

Steps to Implement:

Initial Message Injection: Use InjectAgentMessage to send an immediate acknowledgment upon receiving the user command.
Post-Processing Message Injection: Once the function callback completes its process (e.g., database update), use another instance of InjectAgentMessage to confirm completion to the user.

By configuring your Deepgram agent using these steps, you can provide a more natural and engaging experience.

For more detailed information on how to implement this feature, refer to Deepgram's documentation on InjectAgentMessage.

Conclusion

Implementing a double-response process using InjectAgentMessage can significantly improve how your voice agent communicates during command processing. This technique ensures users feel acknowledged while their commands are being processed, thus mirroring more human-like interactions.

References

If issues persist or the system behavior seems inconsistent, reach out to your Deepgram support representative (if you have one) or visit our community for assistance: https://discord.gg/deepgram