An embodied conversational agent as a lifestyle advisor

Persistent Embodied Conversational Agents (ECA) can be used to assist users in their daily activities. We introduce the Health and Fitness Companion (HFC), which is a conversational system aimed at promoting a healthier lifestyle. The system is embodied using the Nabaztag device, a wireless plastic rabbit supporting multimodal input and output. The HFC integrates a spoken dialogue system previously developed by some of the authors, and a cognitive model, based on Hierarchical Task Network (HTN) planning, which enables the ECA to reason on the user activities and generate plans for recommended activities. A typical demonstration scenario consists in two short conversation sessions between the HFC and the user. During the first the HFC helps the user to plan her day ahead, while the second involves reporting the activities actually carried out. The system has undergone early tests with generic users, which have demonstrated its usability and stability (89% successful dialogue completions).