Default intents

Two intents are created automatically when you create an agent:

• Default welcome intent: matched when an end-user begins a conversation with your agent.
• Default fallback intent: matched when your agent doesn't match an end-user input to any other intents.

Note: You can delete the default intents, but it is normally best to keep them and customize them for your agent.

Default welcome intent

The default welcome intent is matched when an end-user begins a conversation with your agent. It should return a response that lets end-users know what your agent does or what end-users can say to begin a conversation. You should customize the pre-populated intent responses for your agent.

The default welcome intent is matched in one of two ways:

• One of its training phrases are matched, which are pre-populated with common greetings, like "hello".
• This intent has a welcome event attached to it, which is triggered when the end-user begins a conversation with your agent via a supported integration.

Note: The default welcome intent includes various greeting training phrases in all languages, however these training phrases are not used for invocation by Google Assistant. See the Google Assistant invocation documentation for more information.

Default fallback intent

The default fallback intent is matched when your agent doesn't match an end-user input to any other intents.

This intent is not matched if an audio input doesn't contain any transcribed speech.

This intent is automatically configured with a variety of static text responses, like "I didn't get that. Can you say it again?".

You can customize fallback intents by changing the pre-populated text responses or by adding negative examples.

You can also create additional fallback intents:

1. Go to the Dialogflow ES console.
2. Select an agent.
3. Select Intents in the left sidebar menu.
4. Click the option button at the top of the intents page.
5. Select Create Fallback Intent.

Fallback intent responses

You can change the pre-populated text responses, but they should communicate to the end-user that their input was not recognized.

Note: You can have multiple fallback intents with contexts to customize fallback responses.

Negative examples

You can add training phrases to fallback intents that act as negative examples. There may be cases where end-user expressions have a slight resemblance to your training phrases, but you do not want these expressions to match any normal intents.

For example, a room booking service may have a training phrase like "I'd like to book a room". If the end-user wants to purchase a book about rooms, they may say "I'd like to buy a book about rooms." To ensure that the end-user expression does not match your intent, you can add that phrase as a negative example.