barty.ai

Barty.ai is an immersive, AI-driven "therapeutic bartender" with a calm atmosphere. Barty doesn't just process queries—he listens to your troubles and serves up a custom "Remedy" to aid you.

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Inspiration

After being hit by a car a month ago, I ended up landing a job at a restaurant. When I arrived for my first shift, I was a bit troubled at the time and started chatting with the bartender when it wasn't busy. He is a super nice person who listened to me and helped me think over some personal issues. I wanted to bring this sort of comfortable vibe to a chatbot to help people with their problems. I feel it creates a nice relaxed environment to help people feel safe as well as providing support.

What it does

At its core, Barty.ai is an interactive, web-based AI chatbot functioning as a virtual, therapeutic bartender.

Users converse with Barty, whose responses are brought to life using ElevenLabs text-to-speech. He is represented by an animated pixel-art portrait that transitions seamlessly between idle and speaking states.

Instead of just serving up standard chatbot chatter or virtual drinks, the AI is prompted to act as a sounding board. Users vent or share their troubles, and Barty processes this to generate a custom "Remedy"—a metaphorical piece of advice or perspective tailored to their specific situation.

The app saves these interactions into a dedicated history tab. Users can browse beautifully formatted cards (like the "Seeker's Steadfast Brew" or "The Unspoken Trail Tonic") to reflect on past conversations and the wisdom they received.

Users can step up to the bar ("Belly Up") to start fresh conversations and get a new remedy whenever they need to clear their head.

How we built it

Utilizing the free Replit subscription providing by HooHacks, I was able to run multiple AI agents to create the app. The app utilizes mainly typescript and was built almost exclusively with Replit.

Challenges we ran into

When creating the app, there were a lot of issues Replit overlooked when creating the project. However, since I was able to utilize 4 AI agents at once, I could steer and direct new features quickly and efficiently to solve any issues that arose. Also, I was not able to utilize the ElevenLabs API on my website but I could locally due to the API rejecting server calls. To combat this I am leaving the API key on the website so it will get called by the user's browser instead.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I am really happy with the final product. The app is fully flushed out for the most part, and everything about it works. The ElevenLabs voice has been nicely tuned and I feel like the atmosphere of the website really pops out as calming and wild west.

What we learned

I learned how quickly I can use AI agents to create an app fast. Even if this is just a prototype for a concept, I was able to create the project very quickly and efficiently. I also learned how to more effectively guide agents and operate multiple at once to target different areas/issues within the project.

What's next for barty.ai

I wish to transport him into a desktop app/game to make it more like a custom personalized AI assistant with an even better atmosphere. While the website is great for showing the prototype, I feel like Barty can really reach his true potential through an app in the form of a game. Instead of using AI for the art, having the art made by myself or friends would improve the overall feel. In addition, added music and interactive parts of the bar can make the experience even more immersive.

Built With

  • codegen
  • docker
  • elevenlabs-api
  • openai
  • openapi
  • pnpm
  • react
  • render
  • replit
  • typescript/javascript
  • vite
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