Systems and methods for generating a domain-specific conversational automated assistant. In some examples, a conversational language model is used to generate a target answer and a target action recommendation in response to each of a set of in-domain training questions. In some examples, the conversational language model is further used to generate follow-up questions to one or more of its generated target answers, and to then generate a target answer and target action recommendation to each generated follow-up question. In some examples, the processing system also generates a set of out-of-domain training examples including an out-of-domain question, a predetermined target answer, and a predetermined target action recommendation. The automated assistant may then be trained to predict the generated target answers and target action recommendations based on the associated training question or generated follow-up question, as well as any prior questions and answers in the conversation.