21. An apparatus for automatically managing a dialogue with a user, comprising: a processor; and a memory with computer code instructions stored thereon, the processor and the memory, with the computer code instructions, being configured to cause the apparatus to: transform user-input data received from a client dialogue application into a generic semantic representation, the generic semantic representation being independent of a language and an input modality associated with the user-input data; determine whether the user-input data is indicative of a new request by the user or a refinement request by the user refining one or more previous requests by the user, based on the generic semantic representation and at least one of a maintained state of the dialogue, general knowledge data representing one or more concepts, and data representing history of the dialogue; send multi-facet output data, indicative of one or more actions for the client dialogue application to perform, the one or more actions being determined based on a result of said determining whether the generic semantic representation is indicative of the new request by the user or the refinement by the user refining the one or more previous requests by the user; upon determining that the user-input data is indicative of the refinement request by the user, filter a list of data items based on the generic semantic representation; and return an indication of the result of filtering the list of the data items in the multi-facet output data.
22. The apparatus according to claim 21 , wherein the list of data items represents search results received from a backend system, and wherein the processor and the memory, with the computer code instructions, are further configured to cause the apparatus to filter the list of data items based on at least one of the maintained state of the dialogue, general knowledge data representing one or more concepts, and data representing the history of the dialogue.