# Best Natural Language Understanding (NLU) Software - Page 4 ## How Many Natural Language Understanding (NLU) Software Products Does G2 Track? **Total Products under this Category:** 79 ### Category Stats (Jul 2026) - **Average Rating:** 4.42/5 The average rating of products in this category, based on all submitted ratings - **Top Trending Product:** Plasticity (+6.25%) - Among all products in this category, Plasticity recorded the largest rating increase compared to last month _Last updated: July 27, 2026_ ## How Does G2 Rank Natural Language Understanding (NLU) Software Products? **Why You Can Trust G2's Software Rankings:** - 30 Analysts and Data Experts - 2,500+ Authentic Reviews - 79+ Products - Unbiased Rankings G2's software rankings are built on verified user reviews, rigorous moderation, and a consistent research methodology maintained by a team of analysts and data experts. Each product is measured using the same transparent criteria, with no paid placement or vendor influence. While reviews reflect real user experiences, which can be subjective, they offer valuable insight into how software performs in the hands of professionals. Together, these inputs power the G2 Score, a standardized way to compare tools within every category. ## G2 Grid® for Natural Language Understanding (NLU) Software ![G2 Grid® for Natural Language Understanding (NLU) Software plotting products by satisfaction and market presence](https://www.g2.com/categories/natural-language-understanding-nlu/grids.png?focus%5B%5D=1579500&focus%5B%5D=21473&focus%5B%5D=1562959&focus%5B%5D=52116&focus%5B%5D=21472&focus%5B%5D=77169&focus%5B%5D=1375562&focus%5B%5D=113977) Highlighted products: Claude, Google Cloud Translation API, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Amazon Comprehend, Google Cloud Natural Language API, Deepgram, Azure AI Language, and Google Cloud AutoML Natural Language. Underlying data: [Grid® JSON](https://www.g2.com/categories/natural-language-understanding-nlu/grids.json?focus%5B%5D=claude-2025-12-11&focus%5B%5D=google-cloud-translation-api&focus%5B%5D=microsoft-microsoft-365-copilot&focus%5B%5D=amazon-comprehend&focus%5B%5D=google-cloud-natural-language-api&focus%5B%5D=deepgram&focus%5B%5D=azure-ai-language&focus%5B%5D=google-cloud-automl-natural-language) ### [Guoc](https://www.g2.com/products/guoc/reviews) Context Word Lookup is an AI-powered application designed for iOS and macOS users who engage in serious foreign language reading. It assists users in understanding the meaning of words within sentences by leveraging ChatGPT to provide contextual explanations. This tool is particularly beneficial for readers who recognize individual words but struggle to grasp their meanings within specific contexts. Key Features: - AI-Powered Explanations: Utilizes ChatGPT to interpret and explain words within their sentence context. - User-Friendly Process: Simplifies the lookup process to three steps: copy the sentence, select the word, and receive an explanation. - Comprehensive Sentence Analysis: Offers explanations for entire sentences to enhance overall comprehension. - Lookup History: Saves previous lookups for future reference. - Cross-Device Synchronization: Syncs data between iOS and macOS devices for seamless access. - Export Options: Allows exporting of lookup history in Markdown or CSV formats. - Review Widget: Includes a widget that randomly presents past lookups for easy review. Primary Value: Context Word Lookup addresses the challenge of understanding words within specific contexts, a common hurdle in foreign language reading. By providing AI-generated explanations, it offers users immediate insights, enhancing reading comprehension and language learning efficiency. The app's intuitive design and integration with ChatGPT streamline the process of seeking contextual word meanings, making it an invaluable tool for language learners and avid readers. #### Who Is the Company Behind Guoc? - **Seller:** [Context Word Lookup](https://www.g2.com/sellers/context-word-lookup) - **HQ Location:** N/A - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/No-Linkedin-Presence-Added-Intentionally-By-DataOps (1 employees on LinkedIn®) ### [Hello Nabu](https://www.g2.com/products/hello-nabu/reviews) Hello Nabu is an AI-powered language learning platform designed to help users achieve real-world fluency through personalized, immersive storytelling. Unlike traditional language apps that rely on rote memorization, Hello Nabu offers context-rich scenarios tailored to individual goals, such as professional communication, travel, or everyday conversations. This approach ensures that learners acquire practical language skills applicable to their specific needs. Key Features and Functionality: - CEFR-Aligned Curriculum: Provides structured learning paths from A1 to C1 levels, offering clear progression and measurable goals. - Story-Based Learning: Engages users with realistic scenarios and conversations, making language practice both immersive and memorable. - AI-Powered Feedback: Delivers instant corrections and guidance on pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary through an advanced AI tutor. - Personalized Learning Paths: Adapts to the learner's level, interests, and objectives, ensuring a customized educational experience. - Multi-Language Support: Offers courses in French, Spanish, German, English, Italian, Portuguese, and more. Primary Value and User Solutions: Hello Nabu addresses the limitations of generic language learning methods by focusing on practical, context-based instruction. By integrating AI-driven personalization and real-life scenarios, it equips users with the skills necessary for effective communication in various settings. This tailored approach accelerates the learning process, making it particularly beneficial for professionals, students, and anyone seeking to use a new language confidently in real-world situations. #### Who Is the Company Behind Hello Nabu? - **Seller:** [Hello Nabu](https://www.g2.com/sellers/hello-nabu) - **HQ Location:** N/A - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/hello-nabu/ (76 employees on LinkedIn®) ### [Honeybear](https://www.g2.com/products/honeybear/reviews) Honeybear.ai is an AI-powered platform designed to revolutionize how users interact with dense documents and multimedia content. By enabling interactive engagement with PDFs and YouTube videos, it allows users to ask questions, extract key information, generate summaries, and create practice questions. The platform supports scanned documents through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and provides detailed responses with precise citations, enhancing research and study efficiency. Emphasizing data security, Honeybear.ai employs robust encryption protocols to protect user documents, making it a trusted tool among students and researchers for academic and professional use. Key Features: - Interactive Document Chat: Engage directly with PDFs and YouTube videos by asking questions and receiving accurate, context-aware answers. - OCR Support for Scanned Documents: Process scanned and image-based PDFs to extract text, including complex content like equations and diagrams. - Detailed Responses with Citations: Obtain comprehensive answers referencing exact page numbers or video timestamps for easy source verification. - Multi-Format Support: Interact seamlessly with large documents and multimedia content, including PDFs and videos. - Secure Data Handling: Utilize strong encryption protocols to protect user documents and ensure privacy compliance. - Note Generation and Practice Questions: Create notes and practice questions to deepen understanding and retention. Primary Value and Solutions: Honeybear.ai addresses the challenge of efficiently comprehending and analyzing extensive documents and multimedia content. By offering interactive engagement, precise information extraction, and robust security measures, it enhances productivity for students, researchers, and professionals dealing with complex materials. The platform's ability to handle various document formats and provide detailed, citation-backed responses makes it an invaluable tool for academic and professional endeavors. #### Who Is the Company Behind Honeybear? - **Seller:** [Honeybear.ai](https://www.g2.com/sellers/honeybear-ai) - **HQ Location:** N/A - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/No-Linkedin-Presence-Added-Intentionally-By-DataOps (1 employees on LinkedIn®) ### [IBM Watson NLP Library for Embed](https://www.g2.com/products/ibm-watson-nlp-library-for-embed/reviews) Introducing IBM Watson NLP Library for Embed, a containerized library designed to empower IBM partners with greater flexibility to infuse powerful natural language AI into their solutions. It combines the best of open source and IBM® Research® NLP algorithms to deliver superior AI capabilities developers can access and integrate into their apps in the environment of their choice. Offered to partners as embeddable AI, a first of its kind software portfolio that offers best of breed AI from IBM. #### Who Is the Company Behind IBM Watson NLP Library for Embed? - **Seller:** [IBM](https://www.g2.com/sellers/ibm) - **Year Founded:** 1911 - **HQ Location:** Armonk, New York, United States - **Twitter:** @IBMSecurity (74,660 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/1009/ (328,202 employees on LinkedIn®) - **Ownership:** SWX:IBM ### [Itextmaster](https://www.g2.com/products/itextmaster/reviews) iTextMaster is an AI-driven text analysis, summarization, and chat tool designed to enhance user interaction with PDF documents and web content. Leveraging advanced natural language processing technologies, it enables users to communicate with any PDF or webpage anytime, anywhere. Key Features and Functionality: - Chat with PDF: Users can upload local or online PDF documents and engage in natural language conversations to extract information or answer questions from large files such as manuals, papers, legal contracts, books, or research papers. - Web Chat: By entering a webpage address, iTextMaster retrieves and parses the content, allowing users to interact with and analyze webpage information efficiently. - Smart Chat: The tool generates common questions about documents, enabling users to quickly obtain essential information. Users can also pose specific questions to delve deeper into document content, receiving intelligent answers. - Intelligent Processing: iTextMaster creates a semantic index for each paragraph in a document, ensuring accurate and contextually relevant responses to user queries. Primary Value and User Solutions: iTextMaster streamlines the process of extracting and understanding information from extensive documents and web pages. By facilitating natural language interactions, it saves users time and effort, enhancing productivity in both personal and professional settings. Whether for academic research, legal analysis, or general information retrieval, iTextMaster provides a reliable and intelligent assistant for efficient document processing. #### Who Is the Company Behind Itextmaster? - **Seller:** [iTextMaster](https://www.g2.com/sellers/itextmaster) - **HQ Location:** N/A - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/No-Linkedin-Presence-Added-Intentionally-By-DataOps (1 employees on LinkedIn®) ### [ITyX AI Platform](https://www.g2.com/products/ityx-ai-platform/reviews) A platform that can "think for itself" providing integrated handling of all service processes. Documents, e-mails, web and mobile apps: AI Platform is the intelligent core of the ITyX portfolio. It analyzes and understands text-based content - independently of language, type, and structure. It helps you overcome the application chaos of incoming e-mails, customer service requests and back office making your service processes future-proof. #### Who Is the Company Behind ITyX AI Platform? - **Seller:** [ITyX Solutions](https://www.g2.com/sellers/ityx-solutions) - **Year Founded:** 1996 - **HQ Location:** Köln, DE - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/ityx-solutions/ (106 employees on LinkedIn®) ### [Kcore Analytics](https://www.g2.com/products/kcore-analytics/reviews) Kcore Analytics is an innovative platform that leverages artificial intelligence and social network analysis to predict human behavior and trends by analyzing real-time online data. Established in 2019 and based in New York, the company specializes in forecasting election outcomes, identifying key influencers, and anticipating market movements. By integrating advanced machine learning algorithms with vast datasets from social media platforms, Kcore Analytics offers precise and timely insights into public opinion and consumer behavior. Key Features and Functionality: - Election Prediction: Utilizes real-time social media analysis to provide accurate and swift forecasts of election trends, offering a modern alternative to traditional polling methods. - Influencer Identification: Employs sophisticated algorithms to detect and target influential individuals within social networks, enhancing the effectiveness of marketing and outreach campaigns. - Market Trend Forecasting: Analyzes global trends across various sectors, from financial markets to consumer products and social movements, enabling businesses to stay ahead of emerging developments. Primary Value and Solutions: Kcore Analytics addresses the limitations of conventional polling and market research by providing real-time, data-driven insights derived from extensive online interactions. Its AI-driven approach allows for the rapid processing of unstructured data, transforming it into actionable intelligence. This empowers political organizations, marketers, and decision-makers to make informed choices, tailor strategies to current public sentiments, and effectively engage with target audiences. By harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and big data, Kcore Analytics delivers a comprehensive understanding of societal trends and behaviors. #### Who Is the Company Behind Kcore Analytics? - **Seller:** [Kcore Analytics](https://www.g2.com/sellers/kcore-analytics) - **Year Founded:** 2019 - **HQ Location:** New York, US - **LinkedIn® Page:** http://linkedin.com/company/kcore-analytics-llc (2 employees on LinkedIn®) ### [Linkedincommentai](https://www.g2.com/products/linkedincommentai/reviews) LinkedIn Comment AI is an upcoming tool designed to enhance user engagement on LinkedIn by providing intelligent, context-aware comment suggestions. By analyzing post content and user interactions, it generates relevant and personalized responses, streamlining the commenting process and fostering meaningful conversations. Key Features and Functionality: - Contextual Comment Generation: Utilizes advanced algorithms to understand post content and generate appropriate comments. - Personalization: Tailors responses based on user preferences and interaction history. - Efficiency: Reduces the time and effort required to engage with LinkedIn content. Primary Value and User Solutions: LinkedIn Comment AI addresses the challenge of maintaining active engagement on LinkedIn by automating the commenting process. It enables users to participate in discussions more effectively, enhancing their professional presence and networking opportunities. #### Who Is the Company Behind Linkedincommentai? - **Seller:** [LinkedIn Comment AI](https://www.g2.com/sellers/linkedin-comment-ai) - **Year Founded:** 2023 - **HQ Location:** Kuala Lumpur, MY - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/linkedin-comment-ai/ (1 employees on LinkedIn®) ### [Locbi](https://www.g2.com/products/locbi/reviews) Locbi is a business intelligence service that enables companies to gain valuable insights into their local competitors by analyzing publicly available Google Maps reviews. By leveraging advanced AI, Locbi generates comprehensive reports that help businesses understand customer sentiments, identify areas for improvement, and uncover market opportunities. Key Features and Functionality: - Competitor Analysis: Locbi examines competitors' Google Maps reviews to provide a clear picture of their strengths and weaknesses. - Customer Sentiment Insights: The service identifies recurring themes and sentiments in customer feedback, highlighting common praises and complaints. - Actionable Recommendations: Based on the analysis, Locbi offers strategic suggestions to enhance business operations and customer satisfaction. - Flexible Reporting Options: Users can opt for single reports or subscribe to monthly analyses, catering to various business needs. Primary Value and Problem Solved: Locbi addresses the challenge businesses face in understanding and outperforming local competitors. By providing detailed insights into competitors' customer feedback, Locbi empowers businesses to make informed decisions, improve their services, and strategically position themselves in the market. This proactive approach helps in enhancing customer satisfaction and driving growth. #### Who Is the Company Behind Locbi? - **Seller:** [Contentbase](https://www.g2.com/sellers/contentbase) - **Year Founded:** 2025 - **HQ Location:** N/A - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/contentbaseai/ (1 employees on LinkedIn®) ### [Loyae](https://www.g2.com/products/loyae/reviews) Loyae optimizes websites for better rankings & organic traffic, enhancing your online presence. #### Who Is the Company Behind Loyae? - **Seller:** [Loyae](https://www.g2.com/sellers/loyae) - **Year Founded:** 2014 - **HQ Location:** Bay Area, US - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/loyae (2 employees on LinkedIn®) ### [msgmate.io](https://www.g2.com/products/msgmate-io/reviews) Msgmate generates images for an enhanced chat experience in messaging apps. #### Who Is the Company Behind msgmate.io? - **Seller:** [msgmate.io](https://www.g2.com/sellers/msgmate-io) - **HQ Location:** N/A - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/No-Linkedin-Presence-Added-Intentionally-By-DataOps (1 employees on LinkedIn®) ### [ONDEWO NLU Platform](https://www.g2.com/products/ondewo-nlu-platform/reviews) The ONDEWO NLU Platform is an advanced natural language understanding solution designed to empower businesses in creating intelligent conversational agents. By leveraging cutting-edge AI technologies, it enables the development of chatbots and virtual assistants capable of comprehending and processing human language with high accuracy. Key Features and Functionality: - Intent Recognition: Accurately identifies user intentions to facilitate appropriate responses. - Entity Extraction: Extracts relevant data points from user inputs for enhanced context understanding. - Context Management: Maintains conversational context to ensure coherent and meaningful interactions. - Multilingual Support: Supports multiple languages, enabling global reach and accessibility. - Scalability: Designed to handle high volumes of interactions, suitable for businesses of all sizes. Primary Value and User Solutions: The ONDEWO NLU Platform addresses the challenge of creating responsive and intelligent conversational agents by providing a robust framework for natural language processing. It enhances customer engagement through more human-like interactions, streamlines customer support by automating responses, and improves operational efficiency by reducing the need for human intervention in routine inquiries. This leads to increased customer satisfaction and cost savings for businesses implementing the platform. #### Who Is the Company Behind ONDEWO NLU Platform? - **Seller:** [ONDEWO](https://www.g2.com/sellers/ondewo) - **Year Founded:** 2017 - **HQ Location:** Vienna, AT - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/ondewo (9 employees on LinkedIn®) ### [Oomiji](https://www.g2.com/products/oomiji/reviews) Oomiji is an AI-powered customer intelligence platform that enables businesses to capture, analyze, and act upon qualitative customer feedback at the individual level. By integrating customer acquisition, management, understanding, engagement, and measurement into a single, intuitive system, Oomiji helps companies build authentic, insight-driven connections with their customers. Key Features and Functionality: - Individual-Level Language Intelligence: Oomiji appends verbatim, open-ended customer feedback directly to individual records, making emotions, perceptions, and motivations searchable and actionable at the person level. - Understanding "Why," Not Just "What": The platform applies AI to qualitative inputs to surface the underlying perceptions and emotional drivers behind customer behavior, going beyond traditional behavioral metrics. - One-Click Insight to Action: Oomiji instantly generates executive-ready themes, opportunities, and friction points, eliminating manual analysis and enabling swift decision-making without the need for data scientists. - Language-Based Segmentation: The system creates dynamic segments based on exact customer language, such as "loyal but price-sensitive," allowing for targeted marketing based on how customers describe their own experiences. - Reinventing NPS as a Growth Engine: Oomiji transforms static Net Promoter Scores into qualitative tools by analyzing the language behind the scores, facilitating the creation of look-alike promoter audiences and targeted recovery strategies. - Built for Activation, Not Just Insight: The platform integrates directly into CRM and marketing workflows, supporting revenue-driving personalization strategies. Primary Value and Solutions Provided: Oomiji addresses the limitations of traditional data aggregation by capturing the nuances of customer language, providing businesses with reliable, accurate, and actionable data. This leads to improved customer trust and loyalty, increased efficiency through reduced re-discovery and re-asking, and enhanced relevance in communication. By preserving qualitative data, Oomiji enables better targeting, higher conversion rates, and ultimately, increased sales. #### Who Is the Company Behind Oomiji? - **Seller:** [Oomiji](https://www.g2.com/sellers/oomiji) - **Year Founded:** 2022 - **HQ Location:** New York, US - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/oomiji (926 employees on LinkedIn®) ### [Ozmosys](https://www.g2.com/products/ozmosys/reviews) Ozmosys is an AI-driven platform designed to streamline content discovery and analysis for professionals in the legal and financial sectors. By aggregating and processing data from diverse sources, including news outlets and social media, Ozmosys enables users to stay informed about industry trends, market movements, and critical developments without the fear of missing out. Key Features and Functionality: - Fetch: Utilizes web scraping technology to collect data from various online sources, including social media posts and news articles. - Analyze: Offers tools such as keyword clouds, discussion volume charts, and sentiment analysis to interpret and visualize the gathered information. - Curate: Employs powerful search capabilities, noise-filtering algorithms, and an AI relevancy engine to refine and prioritize content. - Deliver: Provides real-time monitoring, instant alerts, and daily digests to keep users updated on pertinent information. Primary Value and User Solutions: Ozmosys addresses the challenge of information overload by delivering concise, relevant, and timely insights tailored to the user's specific interests. This ensures that professionals are never left out or surprised by critical developments in their field, allowing them to make informed decisions efficiently. By automating the processes of data collection, analysis, and dissemination, Ozmosys saves valuable time and enhances productivity for its users. #### Who Is the Company Behind Ozmosys? - **Seller:** [Ozmosys](https://www.g2.com/sellers/ozmosys) - **Year Founded:** 2019 - **HQ Location:** Kyiv, UA - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/newsfetch (1 employees on LinkedIn®) ### [PDF Flex](https://www.g2.com/products/pdf-flex/reviews) PDF Flex, now integrated into PDF Guru, is an AI-powered tool designed to efficiently summarize lengthy PDF documents, including articles, reports, and research papers. By leveraging advanced artificial intelligence, it condenses extensive content into concise summaries, enabling users to quickly grasp essential information without reading the entire document. Key Features and Functionality: - AI-Powered Summarization: Utilizes advanced AI algorithms to generate accurate and concise summaries of lengthy PDF documents. - Multilingual Support: Supports summarization in multiple languages, including English, Italian, French, Portuguese, German, and Spanish, catering to a diverse user base. - User-Friendly Interface: Offers a simple drag-and-drop feature for uploading files, making the summarization process straightforward and accessible. - Secure Processing: Ensures document confidentiality with HTTPS encryption and robust security protocols during the summarization process. - Free Access: Provides free summarization services without the need for additional software installation, offering a cost-effective solution for users. Primary Value and User Benefits: PDF Flex addresses the challenge of information overload by enabling users to quickly extract key insights from extensive documents. This is particularly beneficial for professionals, students, and researchers who need to review large volumes of information efficiently. By providing concise summaries, it saves time, enhances productivity, and facilitates better decision-making. The tool's multilingual capabilities and user-friendly design make it accessible to a global audience, while its commitment to security ensures that users can trust the confidentiality of their documents. #### Who Is the Company Behind PDF Flex? - **Seller:** [Pdfguru](https://www.g2.com/sellers/pdfguru) - **Year Founded:** 2023 - **HQ Location:** N/A - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/pdf-guru (10 employees on LinkedIn®) - [‹ Prev‹ Prev](/categories/natural-language-understanding-nlu?order=g2_score&page=3#product-list) - [1](/categories/natural-language-understanding-nlu?order=g2_score#product-list) - [2](/categories/natural-language-understanding-nlu?order=g2_score&page=2#product-list) - [3](/categories/natural-language-understanding-nlu?order=g2_score&page=3#product-list) - 4 - [5](/categories/natural-language-understanding-nlu?order=g2_score&page=5#product-list) - [6](/categories/natural-language-understanding-nlu?order=g2_score&page=6#product-list) - [Next ›Next ›](/categories/natural-language-understanding-nlu?order=g2_score&page=5#product-list) Spotlight Categories [Board Management Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/board-management) [Survey Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/survey) [Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/robotic-process-automation-rpa) [Application Performance Monitoring (APM) Tools](https://www.g2.com/categories/application-performance-monitoring-apm) [Live Chat Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/live-chat) Similar Categories - [Natural Language Generation (NLG)](/categories/natural-language-generation-nlg) - [Natural Language Processing (NLP) Platforms](/categories/natural-language-processing-nlp-platforms) [Browse Natural Language Understanding (NLU) Themes](/categories/natural-language-understanding-nlu/themes) ![Bijou Barry](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Bijou Barry") BB Researched and written by [Bijou Barry](https://research.g2.com/insights/author/bijou-barry) Updated April 9, 2026 Natural language understanding (NLU) software uses machine learning algorithms and statistical methods to help applications better understand human text, providing outputs such as part-of-speech tagging, sentiment analysis, named entity recognition, automatic summarization, emotion detection, and language detection from language inputs. ### Core Capabilities of NLU Software To qualify for inclusion in the Natural Language Understanding category, a product must: - Provide a deep learning algorithm specifically for human language interaction - Connect with language data pools to learn a specific solution or function - Consume language as an input and provide an outputted solution ### Common Use Cases for NLU Software Developers and AI teams use NLU software to add human language comprehension capabilities to applications and services. Common use cases include: - Powering chatbots and virtual assistants with intent recognition and multi-turn conversation understanding - Enabling social media monitoring tools to analyze brand sentiment and detect mentions automatically - Supporting translation and language detection applications across diverse linguistic data sources ### How NLU Software Differs from Other Tools NLU is a specialized form of [natural language processing (NLP)](https://www.g2.com/categories/natural-language-processing-nlp) focused specifically on language comprehension and intent understanding, rather than the full spectrum of text processing tasks. NLU algorithms are examples of deep learning and may be offered as prebuilt capabilities within broader AI platform solutions, making them more focused than general NLP platforms that cover text generation and classification alongside understanding. ### Insights from G2 on NLU Software Based on category trends on G2, intent recognition accuracy and ease of integration into conversational applications stand out as top capabilities. These platforms deliver improvements in chatbot understanding and reduction in misclassified user inputs as primary outcomes of adoption. Show More * * * ## How Do You Choose the Right Natural Language Understanding (NLU) Software? ### What You Should Know About Natural Language Understanding Software ### What is Natural Language Understanding Software? Natural language understanding, a subset of natural language processing (NLP), makes predictions or decisions based on text data. These learning algorithms can be embedded within applications to provide automated artificial intelligence (AI) features. A connection to a data source is necessary for the algorithm to learn and adapt over time.  Pulling out actionable insights from numerical data housed in ERP systems, CRM software, or accounting software is one thing, but gaining insights from unstructured data sources is invaluable. Without dedicated software for this task, businesses must spend significant time and resources building natural language understanding models or haphazardly investigating the data. These algorithms may be developed with supervised learning or unsupervised learning. Supervised learning involves training an algorithm to determine a pattern of inference by feeding it consistent data to produce a repeated, general output. Human training is necessary for this type of learning. Unsupervised algorithms independently reach an output and are a feature of deep learning algorithms. Reinforcement learning is the final form of machine learning, which consists of algorithms that understand how to react based on their situation or environment. End users of intelligent applications may not be aware that an everyday software tool utilizes a machine learning algorithm to provide automation of some kind. Additionally, machine learning solutions for businesses may come in a machine learning as a service (MLaaS) model. **What Does NLU Stand For?** NLU stands for Natural Language Understanding, which is a subset of natural language processing (NLP). #### What Types of Natural Language Understanding Software Exist? Natural language understanding, at its core, allows machines to understand human language in spoken or written form. There are two key methods this can be accomplished. **Machine learning-based systems** Machine learning algorithms use statistical methods. They learn to perform tasks based on training data they are fed and adjust their methods as more data is processed. Using a combination of machine learning, deep learning, and neural networks, natural language processing algorithms hone their own rules through repeated processing and learning. **Rules-based systems** This system uses carefully designed linguistic rules. This approach was used early in the development of natural language processing and is still used. ### What are the Common Features of Natural Language Understanding Software? The following are some core features within natural language understanding software that can help users better understand text data: **Part-of-speech (POS) tagging:** With POS tagging, users can parse text by parts of speech. This can help break down sentences into component parts to understand them. **Named entity recognition (NER):** Sentences are comprised of various entities, from street names to surnames, places, and more. With NER, one can extract these entities. These extracted entities can then be fed into other systems automatically. **Sentiment analysis:** Language can be positive, negative, or neutral. Using sentiment analysis techniques, one can input text and be given the sentiment (positive or negative) of that text. **Emotion detection:** Similar to sentiment analysis, emotion detection can detect the emotion of human language, whether written or spoken. Despite the research supporting it, this method has come under scrutiny, and its veracity has been challenged. ### What are the Benefits of Natural Language Understanding Software? Natural language understanding is useful in many different contexts and industries. **Application development:** NLU drives the development of AI applications that streamline processes, identify risks, and improve effectiveness. **Efficiency:** NLU-powered applications are constantly improving because of the recognition of their value and the need to stay competitive in the industries in which they are used. They also increase the efficiency of repeatable tasks. A prime example of this can be seen in eDiscovery, where machine learning has created massive leaps in the efficiency with which legal documents are looked through, and relevant ones are identified. **Scalability:** Humans are great at analysis, but their analysis skills can break down when the amount of data is vast and when they need to produce results in record time. NLU-powered technology does not get stressed, pressured, or tired. It can analyze a (relatively) small amount of data or a large text corpus with ease, speed, and accuracy. This can be scaled across a business’ text datasets and various use cases. **Discovering trends:** NLU can do a great job at finding trends and patterns in text data. Through word clouds, graphs and charts, and more, NLU can provide users with deep insight into what is happening beneath the surface. **Empowering non-technical users:** Much NLU technology in the market is no-code or low-code, which allows non-technical users to benefit from the technology. Gone are the days when one needed to go to a data scientist or IT professional to understand language data. ### Who Uses Natural Language Understanding Software? NLU has applications across nearly every industry. Some industries that benefit from NLU applications include financial services, cybersecurity, recruiting, customer service, energy, and regulation. **Marketing:** NLU-powered marketing applications help marketers identify content trends, shape content strategy, and personalize marketing content.  **Finance:** Financial services institutions are increasing their use of NLU-powered applications to stay competitive with others in the industry who are doing the same. Some examples may include trawling through thousands of insurance claims and identifying ones with a high potential to be fraudulent. The process is similar, and the machine learning algorithm can digest the data to achieve the desired outcome quicker. **Human resources:** Resumes are long and filled with words. As such, natural language understanding technology can help recruiters comb through large amounts of resumes and other text data to better understand candidates. ### What are the Alternatives to Natural Language Understanding Software? Alternatives to natural language understanding software can replace this type of software, either partially or completely: [Machine learning software](https://www.g2.com/categories/machine-learning#learn-more) **:** Natural language understanding (NLU) software is specifically connected to and used for text data. If one is looking for more general-use machine learning algorithms, machine learning software would be a good category to pursue. [Text analysis software](https://www.g2.com/categories/text-analysis#learn-more) **:** NLU software is geared toward incorporating NLU capabilities into other applications or systems. Text analysis software, however, is an all-purpose solution built to analyze any text data. Businesses looking to focus on analyzing their text data, such as from surveys, review sites, social media, and customer service tools, can leverage text analysis software to achieve this goal. This software enables businesses to consolidate and analyze their text data within a single platform.  #### Software Related to Natural Language Understanding Software Related solutions that can be used together with natural language understanding software include: [Chatbots software](https://www.g2.com/categories/chatbots) **:** Businesses looking for an off-the-shelf conservational AI solution can leverage chatbots. Tools specifically geared toward chatbot creation helps companies use chatbots off the shelf, with little to no development or coding experience necessary. [Bot platforms software](https://www.g2.com/categories/bot-platforms) **:** Companies looking to build their own chatbot can benefit from bot platforms, which are tools used to build and deploy interactive chatbots. These platforms provide development tools such as frameworks and API toolsets for customizable bot creation. [Intelligent virtual assistants (IVAs)](https://www.g2.com/categories/intelligent-virtual-assistants) **:** Businesses that want conversational AI with strong natural language understanding capabilities should consider IVAs. IVAs understand a range of different intents from a singular utterance and can even understand responses they are not explicitly programmed to using natural language processing (NLP). With the use of machine learning and deep learning, IVAs can grow intelligently and understand a wider vocabulary and colloquial language, as well as provide more precise and correct responses to requests. ### Challenges with Natural Language Understanding Software Software solutions can come with their own set of challenges.  **Data preparation:** A potential concern is preparing the data to be ingested by the NLU tool. The data needs to be stored properly, whether that is in a database or data warehouse. Users may require IT or a dedicated admin to ensure the text analytics tool can consume the data. **Automation pushback:** One of the biggest potential issues with machine learning-powered applications, such as NLU, lies in removing humans from processes. This is particularly problematic when looking at emerging technologies like self-driving cars. By completely removing humans from the product development lifecycle, machines are given the power to decide in life-or-death situations. **Data security:** Companies must consider security options to ensure the correct users see the correct data. They must also have security options that allow administrators to assign verified users different levels of access to the platform. ### Which Companies Should Buy Natural Language Understanding Software? Pattern recognition can help businesses across industries. Effective and efficient predictions can help these businesses make data-informed decisions, such as dynamic pricing based upon a range of data points. **Retail:** An e-commerce site can leverage an NLU application programming interface (API) to create rich, personalized experiences for every user. **Entertainment:** Media organizations can leverage NLU to comb through their scripts and other content to catalog and categorize their material. **Finance:** Financial institutions can analyze contracts and conduct sentiment analysis and named entity recognition to better understand these documents and to scale operations. ### How to Buy Natural Language Understanding Software #### Requirements Gathering (RFI/RFP) for Natural Language Understanding Software If a company is just starting out and looking to purchase their first NLU software, wherever they are in the buying process, g2.com can help select the best machine learning software for them. Taking a holistic overview of the business and identifying pain points can help the team create a checklist of criteria. The checklist serves as a detailed guide that includes both necessary and nice-to-have features, including budget, features, number of users, integrations, security requirements, cloud or on-premises solutions, and more. Depending on the scope of the deployment, it might be helpful to produce an RFI, a one-page list with a few bullet points describing what is needed from a machine learning platform. #### Compare Natural Language Understanding Software Products **Create a long list** From meeting the business functionality needs to implementation, vendor evaluations are an essential part of the software buying process. For ease of comparison, after the demos are complete, it helps to prepare a consistent list of questions regarding specific needs and concerns to ask each vendor. **Create a short list** From the long list of vendors, it is advisable to narrow down the list of vendors and come up with a shorter list of contenders, preferably no more than three to five. With this list in hand, businesses can produce a matrix to compare the features and pricing of the various solutions. **Conduct demos** To ensure the comparison is thoroughgoing, the user should demo each solution on the shortlist with the same use case and datasets. This will allow the business to evaluate like for like and see how each vendor stacks up against the competition. #### Selection of Natural Language Understanding Software **Choose a selection team** Before getting started, it's crucial to create a winning team that will work together throughout the entire process, from identifying pain points to implementation. The software selection team should consist of members of the organization who have the right interest, skills, and time to participate in this process. A good starting point is to aim for three to five people who fill roles such as the main decision maker, project manager, process owner, system owner, or staffing subject matter expert, as well as a technical lead, IT administrator, or security administrator. In smaller companies, the vendor selection team may be smaller, with fewer participants multitasking and taking on more responsibilities. **Negotiation** Prices on a company's pricing page are not always fixed (although some companies will not budge). It is imperative to open up a conversation regarding pricing and licensing. For example, the vendor may be willing to give a discount for multi-year contracts or for recommending the product to others. **Final decision** After this stage, and before going all in, it is recommended to roll out a test run or pilot program to test adoption with a small sample size of users. If the tool is well used and well received, the buyer can be confident that the selection was correct. If not, it might be time to go back to the drawing board. ### What Does Natural Language Understanding Software Cost? NLU software is generally available in different tiers, with the more entry-level solutions costing less than the enterprise-scale ones. The former will usually lack features and may have caps on usage. Vendors may have tiered pricing, in which the price is tailored to the users’ company size, the number of users, or both. This pricing strategy may come with some degree of support, either unlimited or capped at a certain number of hours per billing cycle. Once set up, they do not often require significant maintenance costs, especially if deployed in the cloud. As these platforms often come with many additional features, businesses looking to maximize the value of their software can contract third-party consultants to help them derive insights from their data and get the most out of the software. #### Return on Investment (ROI) Businesses decide to deploy machine learning software with the goal of deriving some degree of ROI. As they are looking to recoup the losses that they spent on the software, it is critical to understand the costs associated with it. As mentioned above, these platforms typically are billed per user, which is sometimes tiered depending on the company size.  More users will naturally translate into more licenses, which means more money. Users must consider how much is spent and compare that to what is gained, both in terms of efficiency as well as revenue. Therefore, businesses can compare processes between pre- and post-deployment of the software to better understand how processes have been improved and how much time has been saved. They can even produce a case study (either for internal or external purposes) to demonstrate the gains they have seen from their use of the platform. ### Natural Language Understanding Software Trends **Automation** With the adoption of NLU and the automation of repetitive tasks, businesses can deploy their human workforce to more creative projects. For example, if a machine learning algorithm automatically displays personalized advertisements based on a user’s text, the human marketing team can work on producing creative material. **Voice technology** Voice is a primal method of interacting with others. It is only natural that we now converse with our machines using our voice and that the platforms for said voicebots have seen great success. Voice makes technology feel more human and allows people to trust it more. Voice will prove to be a crucial natural interface that mediates human communication and relationships with devices within an AI-powered world. **Artificial intelligence (AI)** AI is quickly becoming a promising feature of many, if not most, types of software. With machine learning, end users can identify patterns in data, allowing them to make sense of content and help them understand what they are seeing. This pattern recognition is fueling the rise of more powerful, contextually-aware chatbots.