Abstract
Conversational information access systems aim to assist users in task-oriented exchanges
of information in a conversational manner. Supporting multiple user goals, such as
informational search, recommendation and exploratory information gathering.
This thesis presents the implementation and development cycle of a conversational
recommender skill for conference content, an instance of a conversational information
access system. The project is a part of a larger one, with the final goal to produce a
product to be available as a conversation conference assistant at the European Conference
on Information Retrieval (ECIR) in April 2022. The skill features rich responses, making
use of multi-modality in the form of an external screen.