What is NLU

Natural Language Understanding (NLU) is a branch of artificial intelligence that enables machines to comprehend, interpret, and extract meaning from human language in text or speech format. Unlike natural language processing which focuses on manipulation and generation, NLU specifically addresses semantic understanding, intent recognition, and contextual interpretation of linguistic input. NLU systems analyze grammatical structures, identify entities, determine relationships between concepts, and infer user intentions from conversational inputs. This technology powers virtual assistants, chatbots, sentiment analysis tools, and voice interfaces by converting unstructured language into structured data that machines can process and act upon. Advanced NLU incorporates deep learning models, transformer architectures, and contextual embeddings to handle ambiguity, implied meanings, and complex linguistic phenomena. NLU capabilities are essential for building conversational AI agents that can engage in natural human-machine interactions, understand user queries accurately, and provide relevant responses based on true comprehension rather than pattern matching.