# The Design and Implementation of XiaoIce, an Empathetic Social Chatbot

Source: [The Design and Implementation of XiaoIce, an Empathetic Social Chatbot](<https://www.sota2.com/research/paper/68fa66581e209131cea0facd>)

Collection index: [llms.txt](<https://www.sota2.com/research/llms.txt>)

Data updated: 2025-10-25T21:47:30.843Z

Authors: Li Zhou, Jianfeng Gao, Di Li, Heung-Yeung Shum

Published: 2018-12-21T08:01:31.000Z

## Abstract

This paper describes the development of Microsoft XiaoIce, the most popular social chatbot in the world. XiaoIce is uniquely designed as an AI companion with an emotional connection to satisfy the human need for communication, affection, and social belonging. We take into account both intelligent quotient (IQ) and emotional quotient (EQ) in system design, cast human-machine social chat as decision-making over Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), and optimize XiaoIce for long-term user engagement, measured in expected Conversation-turns Per Session (CPS). We detail the system architecture and key components including dialogue manager, core chat, skills, and an empathetic computing module. We show how XiaoIce dynamically recognizes human feelings and states, understands user intent, and responds to user needs throughout long conversations. Since her launch in 2014, XiaoIce has communicated with over 660 million active users and succeeded in establishing long-term relationships with many of them. Analysis of large scale online logs shows that XiaoIce has achieved an average CPS of 23, which is significantly higher than that of other chatbots and even human conversations.

## Recorded benchmark results

A research result applies to its stated dataset, split, metric and evaluation configuration. Compare like-for-like settings, preserve the metric's unit and direction, and distinguish paper-reported results from independent reproduction. The best result recorded here is not a claim of exhaustive, current global coverage.

- [Open-domain Conversation on Human-bot Chat](<https://www.sota2.com/research/sota/open-domain-conversation-on-human-bot-chat.md>): Open-domain Conversation; Open-domain dialogue Human-bot chat; Coherence: 1.54.

## Original sources and implementation

[Original paper](<https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.08989>)

[PDF](<https://arxiv.org/pdf/1812.08989.pdf>)