A technique for determining intent associated with a spoken utterance of a user comprises the following steps/operations. Decoded speech uttered by the user is obtained. An intent is then extracted from the decoded speech uttered by the user. The intent is extracted in an iterative manner such that a class is determined after a first iteration and a sub-class of the class is determined after a second iteration. The class and the sub-class of the class are hierarchically indicative of the intent of the user, e.g., a target and data that may be associated with the target. The user intent extracting step may further determine a sub-class of the sub-class of the class after a third iteration, such that the class, the sub-class of the class, and the sub-class of the sub-class of the class are hierarchically indicative of the intent of the user.