This application discloses a response determining method. The method includes: obtaining a to-be-responded first user statement; determining first state information of the first user statement based on the first user statement by using a state determining network, where the first state information includes a first dialog type of the first user statement; and inputting the first user statement and the first dialog type into a response generation network, to obtain a response corresponding to the first user statement. In this application, a dialog type of a user dialog is identified by using the state determining network, and responses corresponding to different dialog types are generated by reusing the dialog generation network, which is equivalent to processing user statements of different dialog types by using a same model, thereby reducing model complexity and a model size of a dialog system.