Proactive dialogue systems, related to a wide range of real-world conversational applications, equip the conversational agent with the capability of leading the conversation direction towards achieving pre-defined targets or fulfilling certain goals from the system side. It is empowered by advanced techniques to progress to more complicated tasks that require strategical and motivational interactions. In this survey, we provide a comprehensive overview of the prominent problems and advanced designs for conversational agent's proactivity in different types of dialogues. Furthermore, we discuss challenges that meet the real-world application needs but require a greater research focus in the future. We hope that this first survey of proactive dialogue systems can provide the community with a quick access and an overall picture to this practical problem, and stimulate more progresses on conversational AI to the next level.

翻译：主动性对话系统与广泛的实际对话应用相关，使对话代理具备引导对话方向的能力，以实现系统方预设的目标或达成特定目的。它借助先进技术进展到需要策略性和动机性交互的更复杂任务。本文全面概述了不同类型对话中对话代理主动性的显著问题与前沿设计。此外，我们讨论了符合实际应用需求但未来需加大研究力度的挑战。期待本次主动性对话系统的首篇综述能为学界提供这一实践问题的快速入门与整体图景，并推动对话式人工智能迈向新高度。