1. A method of performing speech recognition using an electronic interactive agent, comprising: forming a communications link between a client device and a server system adapted for streaming speech data; providing a distributed speech recognition engine using resources from both the client device and the server system; presenting the electronic interactive agent in a form perceptible to a user of the client device; soliciting natural language speech utterance data in the form of continuous speech from the user of the device using the electronic interactive agent; recognizing said speech utterance data using said distributed speech recognition engine to generate a recognized speech statement and processing said recognized speech statement using a natural language engine to identify a best response to said recognized speech statement among a number of predefined, stored queries and associated answers, the natural language engine being adapted to consider words not in said queries and associated answers to determine the best response; if the best response is not identified with a specified confidence level using the natural language engine, presenting the recognized speech statement to one or more additional natural language engines; controlling the electronic interactive agent to communicate the best response to the recognized speech statement generated by the server system; wherein the electronic interactive agent is adapted to mimic behavior of a human agent through a natural language query session conducted with the user.
1. A method of performing speech recognition using an electronic interactive agent, comprising: forming a communications link between a client device and a server system adapted for streaming speech data; providing a distributed speech recognition engine using resources from both the client device and the server system; presenting the electronic interactive agent in a form perceptible to a user of the client device; soliciting natural language speech utterance data in the form of continuous speech from the user of the device using the electronic interactive agent; recognizing said speech utterance data using said distributed speech recognition engine to generate a recognized speech statement and processing said recognized speech statement using a natural language engine to identify a best response to said recognized speech statement among a number of predefined, stored queries and associated answers, the natural language engine being adapted to consider words not in said queries and associated answers to determine the best response; if the best response is not identified with a specified confidence level using the natural language engine, presenting the recognized speech statement to one or more additional natural language engines; controlling the electronic interactive agent to communicate the best response to the recognized speech statement generated by the server system; wherein the electronic interactive agent is adapted to mimic behavior of a human agent through a natural language query session conducted with the user. 3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the electronic interactive agent and distributed speech recognition engine are implemented as software routines.