  Conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems have recently
sky-rocketed in popularity and are now used in many applications, from car
assistants to customer support. The development of conversational AI systems is
supported by a large variety of software platforms, all with similar goals, but
different focus points and functionalities. A systematic foundation for
classifying conversational AI platforms is currently lacking. We propose a
framework for assessing the maturity level of conversational AI development
platforms. Our framework is based on a systematic literature review, in which
we extracted common and distinguishing features of various open-source and
commercial (or in-house) platforms. Inspired by language reference frameworks,
we identify different maturity levels that a conversational AI development
platform may exhibit in understanding and responding to user inputs. Our
framework can guide organizations in selecting a conversational AI development
platform according to their needs, as well as helping researchers and platform
developers improving the maturity of their platforms.
