Conversation Design Institute was founded in 2018 by Hans van Dam and Olaf Igesz. They believed that recognizing, developing, and promoting the role of the conversation designer was crucial to advancing trust and communication between humans and AI Assistants.
The CDI Foundation is a non-profit organisation dedicated to developing and promoting design standards for conversational AI Assistants. We do this through research, education and industry development.
Browse the full CDI library
Explore our extensive database of courses, modules, webinars, and expert class recordings on Conversational AI. Learn at your own pace and stay ahead with the latest insights and best practices.
A candid conversation with Alan Nichol (Rasa) and Hans van Dam on what it really takes to build conversational AI platforms in the LLM era: what’s cha…
In this episode of Unprompted, Hans van Dam speaks with Grace Hughes of Accenture Song about growing a conversation design practice in the enterprise.…
In this episode of Unprompted, Nandini Stocker joins Hans van Dam to explore how conversational AI is evolving in the LLM era, from scripting dialogue…
Learn practical Conversation Design patterns for building AI agents that are clear, trustworthy, and customer-focused. This course gives you a reusabl…
After a year of rapid change in conversational AI, the real work remains the same: building assistants that actually perform. Join CDI’s consultancy e…
Hillary Black joins CDI’s Rachel Whitehorn to unpack how conversation design roles are evolving, from scripted flows to prompt-based systems. She shar…
Discover how to unlock value from your conversational data to smash through the glass ceiling of your AI assistant performance. Gain practical strateg…
In this episode of Unprompted, we sit down with Dr. Liz Rodwell, anthropologist, UX researcher, and Associate Professor of Digital Media at the Univer…
Learn a practical framework to build test cases, choose metrics, set regression tests, and add guardrails to make LLM-powered chatbots reliable, safe,…
Discover how generative AI is transforming voice technology—from smarter assistants to more human-like interactions. Join Verint’s Bas Hiemstra and Ja…
In this episode of Unprompted, Karen Kaushansky, UX Lead for Gemini Live at Google DeepMind, shares how conversation design has evolved from flowchart…
This course, developed by COPC and Conversation Design Institute, provides a practical framework for scaling AI agents within contact centers. Partici…
Yam Marcovitz unpacks what it takes to build predictable, production-ready AI. From human-in-the-loop alignment to test-driven development, we explore…
This webinar previews an upcoming in-depth course developed by COPC and the Conversation Design Institute. It’s designed to give CX leaders and practi…
Jason Gilbert from Intuition Robotics discusses designing ElliQ, an AI companion for elderly users. He explores persona design, building trust in heal…
Explore how lifelike digital personas are reshaping AI, communication, and service—from realism and emotion to ethics and design. A must-attend for an…
CDI’s Jasper Klimbie and Michelle Parayil deliver a rare, practical webinar focused on providing guidance on how mature organizations are in their Con…
Learn to design responsible, emotionally intelligent, and visually engaging digital humans. This course explores the design principles, psychology, an…
Hosted by CDI Founder and CEO Hans van Dam, CDI Conversational AI Consultant Jurgen Gravestein, CDI Head of Academy Michelle Parayil, and Emcie CEO Ya…
Discover how structured content fuels more effective, compliant, and scalable AI conversations. This webinar explores best practices for content struc…
Discover how structured content fuels more effective, compliant, and scalable AI conversations. This course explores best practices for content struct…
Over the last few years, dialogue systems in Conversational AI have become much more robust. But to go from an ‘ok’, to a delightful experience your t…
AI is transforming Customer Service. But what does that mean in practice? How will AI alter your strategy and the key metrics you’ll share with your C…
Craft compelling conversational experiences with our CxD 2 Certificate. Master the art of writing engaging dialogue, defining brand voice, and optimiz…
Explore the essentials of designing AI assistants with this free course. Learn the fundamentals of conversation design, the psychology behind conversa…
The Introduction to Prompt Design (IPD) certificate exam will validate your knowledge in the fundamental principles for creating human-centered, inclu…
Learn to create human-centric and inclusive AI assistants with the conversational AI workflow that is powering millions of conversations across the gl…
Learn the conversational AI workflow that is helping teams around the world create human-centric and inclusive conversational AI Assistants. This cour…
Learn the Conversation Design Institute workflow with extra attention to human-centricity, sample dialogue, flowchart design, wizard-of-oz testing, an…
NLU Design is the missing component in most business projects and the typical Conversational Designer's skill set. As we move to a new generation of b…
The Conversational Engineer course is your gateway to understanding the business, technical, and operational aspects of Conversational AI. Learn about…
In this co-created module with Wysdom, a Calabrio company, we delve into the crucial aspect of Bot Management. Gain insights into strategies and techn…
Learn what technology powers chatbots, and why it’s so hard to get them right. Learn the team roles, steps of building an assistant and the specific l…
Learn how to train a language model, implement designs in any conversational AI platform: from simple answers to repair flows, entities and regex cond…
Now that you’ve built a Conversational AI and trained it well, how do you measure how well it’s helping people? And what techniques can you use to kee…
Learn about how to create or refine your conversational AI persona. Learn how to create content to flesh out that personality and make your conversati…
Learn what Conversation design is. And learn how to apply all the fundamental conversation design principles and techniques, to create a successful Co…
This class explores conversational trouble, covering both designing and producing conversational turns, and responding to misunderstandings or Freudia…
In this session, we explore practical use cases of generative AI in customer support and examine UltimateGPT's capabilities. We’ll also discuss the fu…
In a recent insightful webinar, CDI's senior conversational AI consultant, Jasper Klimbie, guided participants through the various ways NLU and LLM-ba…
In a recent insightful webinar, CDI's senior conversational AI consultant, Jasper Klimbie, guided participants through the various ways NLU and LLM-ba…
In a recent insightful webinar, CDI's senior conversational AI consultant, Jasper Klimbie, guided participants through the various ways NLU and LLM-ba…
Guido Jongen, with over 20 years in customer service, is the visionary behind Virtually Human. He will discuss the rise of virtual humans and their po…
This session explores the role of Large Language Models (LLMs) in content management and digital transformation, covering challenges like managing kno…
Catch up on Tanya Van Gastel's talk at the Beyond Boundaries Global Festival 2024 in Barcelona! As the founder of The Multiverse AI, she discusses AI’…
Catch up on Xavier Vilasis’ speech "Keys to success in implementing AI in organisations." Xavier, a distinguished researcher at La Salle University Ba…
Watch Elizabeth Stokoe’s talk "Asking for things is more complicated than you think" at the Beyond Boundaries festival 2024. She is an expert in conve…
Customer demands are growing faster than budgets, so organizations are turning to AI and CX Automation. This session covers maximizing CX with AI, usi…
Data is important, but data without empathy is useless. In this session we will learn about how cognitive empathy is a learnable core skill that makes…
People from various fields, like linguists, engineers, and designers, all bring unique perspectives to conversational AI. In this talk, Hans van Dam s…
Bret Kinsella is the biggest voice of the industry. In this fireside chat, Bret and Hand discuss what excites them about the industry, what the main t…
Learn how Belgium's National Railway Company significantly reduced fall-back to live agents within 3 months. Watch the live recording of Benoit Alvare…
This talk focuses on the choices and trade-offs during a conversational AI implementation, covering topics like:
- Finding automation principles
- Ide…
Better conversational AI starts with team collaboration. Join Voiceflow to learn how to modernize workflows, from design to launch. This session share…
In this session, Benoit will explore how to understand how NLP engines behave, understand how to “teach” them, typical mistakes made, and best practic…
Peter Thomas, director of FORWARD at RMIT University, and Helen Babb-Delia, CEO of Yes Get It, will lead a workshop exploring key issues in conversati…
Cami Rincon from the Alan Turing Institute introduces the Conversation Design Institute’s new AI ethics course, exploring how to integrate fairness, a…
Many chatbots to this day, are still linguistically biased. To combat this, we must diversify the linguistic data we use to train our bots. In this ta…
Most discussions focus on multi-turn conversations, but consumers mainly use voice tech for single-turn interactions. Conversational designers can mee…
Strategy talk: Hans van Dam will share the CDI Benchmarking framework based on the simple formula of scope+experience=value. He then shares how the In…
A 3-5 year view of how virtual assitants will become ubiquitous and part of how we manage our personal lives. For that to come about we explore what n…
I will be walking the audience through the journey my team have been on when implementing a chat bot for all internal colleague support. I'll share st…
Discover how an intent-based chatbot merges marketing automation, luxury brand ambassadors, and personalized content. Learn its impact on user engagem…
SPEAKING model – a conceptual framework where we turn abstract concepts in Conversational AI into something that can help us systematically gather lan…
Experts who shaped personas for Google, Babylon Health, and Daimler discuss why brands need personas, how to develop them, and their role in personali…
IBM’s Thomas Watson Jr. said, “Good design is good business.” How does this apply to conversational AI today? This talk explores the benefits of prior…
One size doesn’t fit all in conversational logic. Christian Buchwald, Chatbot Enthusiast at Cognigy, shares how to build resilience in conversation de…
This talk rethinks 'conversational' by exploring connections between conversation analysis and design. With 50 years of research on social interaction…
Data is important, but data without empathy is useless. In this session we will learn about how cognitive empathy is a learnable core skill that makes…
Kore AI enables conversational designers to go from design to deployment in hours. It allows real-time collaboration, helps design complex conversatio…
In this workshop, you'll learn how quality training data is key to creating a high-performing chatbot from an NLP perspective. We'll cover best practi…
What are the social, economic, ethical, and psychological impacts of conversational AI? This session explores research findings and how they shaped ou…
Building a chatbot is exciting, but building the right team is crucial. Zendesk's Chatbot team shares how they identified talent needs, built cross-co…
In this talk Richard will talk about how we are are the verge of a new technological revolution: of AI assistants (or Natural User Interfaces). Richar…
Willian Costa and Rafael Cunha discuss the challenges of writing bot copy with large text and cognitive load, ensuring the Brazilian electoral process…
Gain valuable insights from Artificial Solutions' journey in conversational AI. Hear from Per Ottosson and Hans van Dam as they share their experience…
I recently completed my first marathon and realized how similar chatbot creation is to marathon running. In this keynote, I’ll discuss how focusing on…
Jason is multi Webby award winner and expert character designer. He started out as a filmmaker but fell in love with conversational AI many years ago.…
An AI Trainer is responsible for cognition, ensuring the assistant understands what people say. This panel discusses the challenges, required skillset…
In this event, you'll build a bot with Microsoft Power Virtual Agents, receiving expert support and coaching from Sarah Critchley, Gary Pretty, and th…
The devices in our homes, cars, and offices play a large role in our daily routines. As IoT technology gains popularity, voice is becoming a natural w…
At the BBC, we aim to design conversations that allow users to engage efficiently and ethically, serving the public good. With conversational AI, we’r…
Greg Bennet is head of conversation design at Salesforce. He heads up the team that is challenged on a daily basis with advocating conversation design…
Discover the latest tools and techniques for creating engaging and effective conversational experiences within the Slack ecosystem with Isabela Berbel…
Digital twins are moving into our world (or are we moving into theirs?). How can we use digital twins to create great conversations? What kind of poth…
This session explored building brand-safe LLMs to revolutionize CX. We discussed identifying effective use cases for generative AI, ensuring its relev…
Discover how AI-driven chatbots and virtual assistants can transform operations, enhance customer experiences, and improve efficiency. This webinar of…
This session lead by Hans Van Dam and Luke Kempen from Conversation Design Institute dives into the topic of "Crafting A Convincing Chatbot Business C…
Stephen Broadhurst and Gregory Whiteside from HumanFirst show how to launch new bot styles by monitoring user input and supervising responses. They al…
Get a basic understanding of how AI Assistants work and become familiar with the workflow of designing conversations. Train your skills right away wit…
In this webinar on “Transforming the Patient Experience with Conversational AI,” Deborah Akinyele, a speech and language pathologist, introduces the l…
Joaquim Bargalló, Head of Customer Success at Artificial Solutions, explains why localization is the best strategy for scaling conversational AI. Lear…
Learn the core features of Voiceflow and how to design, prototype, and scale engaging voice, chat, and multi-modal assistants. This hands-on course fo…
NLP technologies will grow rapidly in the next 3-5 years. Developers and designers can incorporate these without rebuilding from scratch by using a ma…
Our topic today is designing virtual agents with advanced conversational user experience. We'll discuss key considerations for building a powerful vir…
Teams must scale conversational AI to meet customer expectations, but many lack a maturity model. In this keynote, Braden Ream, CEO of Voiceflow, shar…
Learn how ChatGPT can be used to maximise the performance of your chatbots and IVR systems and create delightful conversational experiences. The cours…
What are the challenges of rolling out a chatbot in a global organisation. How can you make a one size fits all model work? How do you provide local b…
Designing conversations in the real world is tough. This talk explores how to create conversational interfaces when time, team, and tech pressures dis…
Botpress is an open-source chatbot platform enabling developers to build bots without data scientists. Launched in 2017, it includes a managed NLU eng…
Conversation designers are using large language models to automate content and focus on curating assistants. In this live workshop, Nicole Merrill (In…
Natwest's chatbot Cora has been at the forefront of Conversational AI. In this talk, Shnay shares the journey so far, the obstacles the team had to ov…
Learn best practices for building omni-channel assistants that meet client expectations. Haptik’s Michelle Parayil and Tripti Nagpal share lessons fro…
CDI Foundation and Talent Data Labs researched the personalities of people in conversational AI. Stefan van Tulder, CEO of Talent Data Labs, shares in…
Everyone is talking about generative AI and ChatGPT. But what does it mean for conversational AI? Bret Kinsella, founder of Voicebot and Synthetic Med…
Conversation design should not be separated from development. Ronald argues that designers need tools and processes that directly translate intentions…
Using Ultimate’s in-house expertise, Marika demonstrates how to design conversation flows that are both helpful to customers and feel human, drawing f…
Welcome to the Main Event - The CDI / Microsoft Hackathon.
During this session you'll build a bot with Microsoft Power Virtual Agents. With expert sup…
Discover how conversational data can drive positive outcomes. Join CDI CEO Hans van Dam as he shares how the American Red Cross used it to connect hur…
Today's customer experience can leave customers and employees frustrated. This talk will explore how to design impactful conversations using Rasa’s AI…
"The topic for today is the role of the IVR, the role of the voice in the conversation when it happens in the banking, financial, and insurance settin…
Vodafone was among the first to adopt bot technology as part of their strategy for scaling. In this session, the technical lead of the TOBi project wi…
The School for Conversation Design is a new program teaching K12 students how to design conversational experiences, equipping them with skills and kno…
Learn the fundamentals of AI ethics and how to apply ethical principles in the conversational AI workflow. Explore real-world dilemmas, prevent harmfu…
The key steps in the CDI Workflow, which design patterns should be used for which type of experience, and lots of examples of how to write good dialog…