Artificial intelligence is packed with surprises the moment you think we have got enough of it, and it knocks on your door with another power-packed feature that makes your life even more accessible. One such product is the AI-based voice assistant app. Since the year 2018, every smartphone, tablet, etc., comes with a voice assistant that serves your command related to the functionalities of that particular device. It’s fascinating when you can talk to technology, and it’s a reminder of the technological evolution.
With the help of AI-based app development, voice assistant apps are evolving and learning the way we behave online. You can ask them for a ton of information like weather, traffic status, call any of your contacts, etc. Voice assistant app development is transforming the way we interact with our devices. However, there are certain things that you can’t expect from these apps. Every pre-existing voice assistant can’t execute your every command. That’s where the Hound app comes into the picture. It is considered to be a real step into the future. It is one of the fastest and most intelligent voice assistants that the world has ever seen. In this blog, you will learn about how to create a voice assistant app like Hound.
What is Hound App, and How Does it work?
Hound is an AI-based voice assistant app that is developed by the company SoundHound. The company is based in Santa Clara, USA. The app is known as one of its kind despite the presence of many other voices based digital assistants in the market, such as Siri, Amazon Alexa, etc. It has only one drawback that it can be launched only from the app. Users can talk to the app, ask questions, and even make it perform various tasks. The success of this app reflects in the dedication of the company as it hired over 150,000 testers to enhance the service and user experience over the period of 8 months. The hound app has started the tie-ups with Yelp and Uber and allows users to fetch information about restaurants and hail a cab ride right from their app.
Despite these improvements, it’s still struggling to become the go-to voice interface for smartphones and tablets. The Hound app is extremely fast and can deliver real-time translations of sentences that you can ever imagine. Just like Google, Apple, Amazon’s voice assistants, you have to say “Ok Hound” to initiate hands-free requests.
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Working of Hound App
The working of Hound App is almost the same as other voice assistant apps, except it outsmarts them. The core technology behind the app is natural language processing combined with machine learning and artificial intelligence. When users give a command to such an app, others translate what they spoke into text and figure out what they are trying to say, while Hound eliminates this step and directly deciphers the speech. Users can ask for a customized search; for instance, they can ask, give me a list of nearby restaurants, and exclude Pizza Hut. Apart from all its features, the app has a default screen that guides the users about its capabilities. However, it does not have direct access to the device’s software like Apple, Amazon, and Google; hence, it lacks the intimate user data to understand their preferences. SoundHound is determined to create various domains with the help of third-party APIs. Currently, it is using a weather domain, a hotel search domain delivered by Expedia, and a phone domain to execute the user’s query.
Why Invest in an AI-based Voice Assistant App Development?
Various giant businesses are making the most of their business with the help of these AI-based voice assistant software. For instance, Google is integrating its voice-based assistant in various smartphones, and Amazon is offering its digital assistant Alexa on its various platforms. It helps businesses find out their user’s interests and personalize their feeds with correct recommendations. These apps are designed to enhance the user experience and customer retention rate. By investing in such AI-based app development processes, you will gain various benefits, which are as follows.
Personalized Consumer Experience
The digital assistants offer a personalized consumer experience with the help of AI. It can distinguish between individual voices and prompts the users with custom results based on their search history, and show them exactly what they want.
Enhance Search Behavior of Users
With the help of these digital assistants, users can search for anything without engaging their hands. They simply have to give out a voice command and ask the query, and the app will fetch the results within a couple of seconds. For instance, Google’s digital assistant initiates after users say “Ok Google” on their devices.
Enhanced Security
As the digital world is transforming, users are more concerned about the security of their sensitive data. With these voice-based assistant apps, businesses need to add an extra layer of security to secure the sensitive data of users, such as payment information, passwords, and much more.
Ultra-modern Interactions
With the help of artificial intelligence, user experience is being redefined. The combination of visual and voice integration capabilities offers a more personalized and seamless experience. Users are now more attracted towards using their devices with voice searches and getting their results. Down the lane, voice searches will increase and allow users to interact with their devices in a futuristic way.
Top Features to Integrate into Your AI-based Voice Assistant App Development
Any AI-based app development is packed with features that serve different purposes. However, some of these features are common in every app development, such as registration that asks the users to fill out a form with basic information, a user profile that a user can choose to update, a built-in scanner to help with the picture-related search, etc. Here are some of the top features that should be considered during the development process.
Pre-trained NLP Modules
Natural language processing is one of the core technologies behind any successful voice assistant app. Your app should have pre-trained NLP Modules for a better consumer experience.
Formulated Conversations
There are some conversations that common in most of the voice searches. Your project should have a set of pre-designed conversations designed artistically for a better impression.
Customized UX Based on Domain
Your business can operate in various domains, and each of them targets different conversations and functions. Please ensure that your project should have user experiences crafted based on your domain.
Trained Speech Recognition
Your voice assistant app should deliver higher accuracy with continuous dynamic Improvements in Speech Recognition Models. You can achieve that by training them according to your area of business.
Multilingual
English is the most common language, and adding an extra set of languages in your app would shoot up the user base and, ultimately, revenue figures.
Automatic Translation
With the help of an automated translation feature, you can decrease the workload of your backend and enhance performance. Users find this feature very useful.
Acknowledge Different Accents
The users without native accents often finds it hard to get the app to understand their query. Please ensure that your app can recognize several accents. This feature will enhance the consumer satisfaction.
Recognize Long Queries
Some users are not able to sum up their queries in few words; instead, they take a long way. Your project should be able to acknowledge long queries and fetch the desired results.
Assistant’s Language
Any conversation is a two-way street. Users should have the option to change the language and accent of the assistant’s voice to their preferred choice or as per your app’s capability.
Different Triggers
Users should be able to trigger the voice assistant in different ways. Please ensure that users can access the app through various triggers such as holding the volume button for three seconds, a voice command, etc. For instance, the Hound voice assistant can be triggered by giving a voice command “Ok Hound.”
Also Read- How to Develop a Voice Recognition App?
AI-based Voice Assistant App Development Process
Voice assistant app development is unique in its own ways. Obviously, it requires a ton of effort and testing. After putting a pile of effort into your app development process, you would expect positive yields. To ensure your app’s success, it is mandatory to perform a diligent market research. Knowing your competitors that are on the canopy of this segment is crucial. A simple market search focuses on the name of the competitors and their revenue figures, but a diligent market research reveals their business strategies, their monetization models, and much more.
While developing a virtual assistant app like Hound, you should be clear about your target audience. Your business domain can differ, and so does the features of your app. With diligent market research, you should find out the expectations of the user base from such an app. The next steps involve carving your app according to the expectations of your potential users. If your target audience prefers a multilingual app, you should include it in the development process.
To develop a concrete blueprint, it’s crucial to know every variable that can affect your project’s success. After you have gathered all the intelligence, carve out an effective blueprint with proper steps to follow.
The next step to create a voice assistant app involves deciding the platform. Research about all the existing platforms and the possible factors that go in your app’s favor, such as cost, features, and much more.
Features of your virtual assistant are the first thing that a user analyzes. Only integrate those features that are mandatory from the user’s perspective. Remember, an app with relevant features and high performance is always better than an app with lots of unnecessary features and a lack of performance. Try to make it more personalized with features.
User Panel
The user panel of your app is where the users interact with the app. Ensure to make it as alluring as possible. You always have the option to hire a freelance UI/UX designer or get in touch with a full-fledged AI-based app development company with positive ratings. A well-rehearsed UI/UX designer will make your app’s design attractive enough to awe the users. A well-researched design can create a significant impact in creating optimum consumer relations. An alluring design doesn’t need to be always flashy and filled with icons. It can be simple but effective. For instance, Google’s UI is straightforward, yet it’s the most effective.
Admin Panel
It is the interface that your backend team will interact with. To ensure maximum feasibility include all the necessary features here. The admin panel is responsible for the flawless operation of any app. It is where the data is managed, and any kind of update is made. It should consist of practical tools to analyze the performance of the app, such as audit logs, chat analytics, unanswered questions, etc. Administrators of such an app can quickly figure out any complications and act accordingly through an effective admin panel.
Platforms and Tools to Consider for the Development Process
To proceed with the development of your voice-based digital assistant app, there are various effective tools available. These platforms and tools are used by various businesses to develop their digital assistant regardless of their genre, such as healthcare, manufacturing, etc. Here are some of the most effective tools and platforms to consider.
Jasper
It is a popular platform that is open-source and is used for developing applications that are voice-controlled. The best part about this platform is its enhanced ability to listen and learn. Jasper can track the behavior of your audiences in the background and delivers concrete information to formulate your subsequent strategies.
Api.ai
You can get a full range of compelling features needed to create a voice assistant app. Api.ai supports voice-to-text conversions and helps your users in executing a set of tasks based on their ability.
Melissa
It is considered as the most effective tool for the beginners in the field of voice assistant app development. Melissa can help your project by delivering features like taking notes, talkback, and dictating the news of the day.
Amazon Machine Learning
It is a powerful tool to have while developing extraordinarily complex and intelligent machine learning apps. As a virtual assistant, your app needs to have a lot of relevant data, and it delivers it with the help of an MYSQL database and various data sources.
Google’s TensorFlow
It is famous for its flexible structure and a software library that is open-source. You can use it with great ease as it delivers enhances flexibility. Google’s TensorFlow can be used on various servers, mobile devices, and much more.
Technologies Required to Create a Voice Assistant App
To make an app that understands humans requires a bunch of technology for different purposes. Various technologies are available in the market that can be used for AI-based app development, such as platforms, third-party APIs, enhanced databases, etc. Here are some of the technologies that should be considered in the development of a digital assistant app.
- Microphone arrays play the role of separating environmental noise and reverberations to understand the query better. To facilitate far-field voice recognition, you can use these microphone array algorithms. Spatial filtering and Beamforming are the most effective Microphone array algorithms.
- Automatic Speech Recognition or ASR performs the function of converting speech to text for the app to understand better. There are two approaches; the first one is Long Short Time Memory (LSTM) neural networks, and the other one is Phoneme to Graphene, which is implemented with Hidden Markov Model. However, the ideal approach involves performing a Digital Signal Processing step to improve the audio signal quality with the help of algorithms.
- Natural Language Understanding or NLU is often referred to as a complex AI problem, but it is required to understand what the user is asking and what the app has to search accordingly. For the purpose of app development like Hound voice assistant, a narrow and shallow NLU system is enough.
- Skill routing and execution takes the intent of the user along with all the extracted entities and performs the business logic, and fetches structured data such as XML, JSON, etc., from various external sources. This is also responsible for the implementation of voice HMI.
- Natural Language Generation or NLG gets the structured data such as XML, JSON, etc., and delivers back the human-readable text. It is pretty similar to NLU and can be complexed too.
- Speech Synthesis, which is also referred to as Text to Speech, gets the answer of a query in the text form and converts it into an audio signal that is later delivered to the user through the device’s speaker. There are two popular approaches of it that you can follow, Concatenation Synthesis and Statistical Parametric Synthesis. They can be used to set the intonation, tone, stress, and rhythm of the query’s output.
- Several APIs can be fruitful for the development process; some of the relevant APIs are Google Speech API, IBM Watson API, SpeechAPI, Speech to Text API, Text-to-Speech API, Rev.AI API, ReadSpeaker API, Speech2Topics API, Siri API, and Wit API.
Team Requirements
Your app development team should be well-rehearsed and aware of all the advancements in the field of artificial intelligence. Whether you hire a freelance team or a complete app development company, check for the client reviews and their previously made products. However, the team required for AI-based app development would be the same as any development team, but the specializations will be different.
A project manager with a deep knowledge of AI should be preferred to look after the complete progression of the project. An AI app developer with a verified experience is required to develop the app. However, the number of app developers would vary as per the complexity of the project. A QA expert is needed to verify the quality of the development. A testing engineer is needed to mark out all the bugs and errors in the app’s code and performance.
Monetization Models
Return of Investments and a profitable business model is a crucial factor while building any project. Ultimately it all boils down to revenue generation. In terms of Voice assistant app development, there is not much scope for integrating business models, but here are some popular ones.
Consultancy: Your app can behave as a medium between a brand and the query of a user-related to that brand. You can charge brands to showcase their products or promote them when any question is asked about a product or service that they sell.
Lead Generation: Leads are required to convert a potential prospect into a buying customer. As a Voice assistant app, you would have plenty of data related to the behavior of users and their needs. You can sell these leads to companies provided that you mask their sensitive pieces of information.
Advertising: However, it is not the most feasible option, but your app can pin various brand’s products as a result of some queries. Before implementing this model, analyze its impact on your user experience.
Factors Affecting the Cost of Development
The hound app is not like any other voice assistant-based. It differs from others in various parameters. Several factors will affect the cost of development as they vary as per your requirements. However, no one can give you an exact estimate, but you can always get an idea about the cost involved.
A large number of features in your app will attract a large number of third-party APIs that will impact your cost. Platforms on which you want to launch your app will affect the cost as a single platform is cheaper than cross-platform development.
Further, the development team composition will also drive the cost. A freelance development will cost you less but cannot guarantee you a sleek development process. On the other hand, a full-fledged app development company will deliver you the feasibility of choosing different hiring models and deliver the best quality. The region of app development will also affect the investment figure of your app development process.
The Bottomline
Artificial intelligence is the future, and any app development associated with it is going to flourish. Despite the presence of various voice assistant app in the market, the world is always ready for another ergonomic one. With the right approach and a diligent development agency, you can fulfill your dream of an AI-based voice assistant app.
Matellio can help you with its flexible hiring models and proficient team of AI app developers. We have delivered several flawlessly engineered voice assistant apps and received excellent feedbacks and ratings. With us, you get a professional and highly experienced team with a streamlined development process. Our developers are well-rehearsed with AI and all its functionalities. Contact us with your idea, and we can get started right away!
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