Abstract: A computer-implemented method for improving a predictive response of a machine learning-based virtual dialogue agent includes identifying an unfilled dialogue slot associated with an active dialogue between a user and the machine learning-based virtual dialogue agent, obtaining subsequent dialogue input data based on prompting the user for the unfilled dialogue slot, and computing a value of the unfilled dialogue slot based on the obtaining of the subsequent dialog input, wherein computing the value of the unfilled dialogue slot includes computing, via a question-answering machine learning model, a slot answer inference comprising the value of the unfilled dialogue slot based on an input of a machine learning-derived query and machine learning-derived context computed for the unfilled dialogue slot.