The voice app market is booming. Amazon Alexa skills are increasing by the day. Acc to sources, everyday around 800 new skills are added to the skill store. Besides, as of August 2019 more than 47 million US adults are using voice-activated smart speakers powered by those skills. As of June 2019, there are over 1 million official Google Actions in the U.S. alone.
With the ever-growing popularity of voice apps with consumers, there’s no better time for, both, voice app developers or those who want to build voice apps.
And thankfully, developing such a voice app doesn’t need to be difficult. While it might seem complicated or intimidating to build a voice-controlled AI assistant, even a layperson can get a voice app up and running in a matter of minutes.
With easy-to-use voice app development platform and analytics for voice bots mushrooming rapidly in the market, publishing a great voice app is a snap — here’s our picks for some of the best building platforms.
Botsociety
Botsociety helps you design conversational interfaces for voice and chat. Do you have a story to tell via the way of a voice app? This tool helps you design and tell your story in a very simple way. You can also invite your team and work collaboratively.
They have a free starting package with all the features included, if you want to work on more than one project you need to check other subscription packages starting from $49/month. Novice Alexa skill developers can easily create a simple skill in just minutes with the simple visual editor.
Storyline
Storyline is a fast, simple Alexa skill builder. This Alexa skills platform doesn’t require any coding; just start with a welcome message, then add some responses in a simple flowchart interface. Storyline is ideal for choose-your-own-adventure style games, simple conversations or news/media briefings.
Most of Storyline’s features are free, though those looking for a beefier Alexa skills platform can sign up for an enterprise-ready subscription at $49/month.
Voice Apps
With a simple name comes a simple Alexa skill builder. Just like Storyline, Voice Apps uses an easy drag-and-drop editor that pretty much anyone can use. So why should one use Voice Apps instead of other tools? One of Voice Apps’ strongest features is its sample skills, which lets Alexa skill developers immediately create skills by customizing readymade intents and responses.
Again, this is an ideal Alexa skills platform for novices or experienced users alike. The basic plan is free, but those in need of some added features will only have to pay $19.95/month for the full suite.
Blutag
Blutag is multiplatform, which means you can use if as a Google Home developer platform in addition to making Alexa skills. Its codeless interface, just like those above, makes it beginner-friendly. Just like Voice Apps, this Alexa skill builder offers a variety of skill templates to get a head start on building useful voice applications.
Blutag is particularly great for ecommerce brands dipping their toes into Alexa skills, since it offers simple integration into existing ecommerce and retail platforms.
Jovo
Jovo is a bit different than any Alexa skills platform or Google Home developer platform detailed above. This one does require coding, although it does tout itself as being user-friendly thanks to its relatively simple framework. Jovo comes with templates, so even if coding knowledge is limited, beginners can experiment with premade skills when developing their own.
If you’re an experienced coder, you might wonder: what’s the real benefit to using Jovo? The platform is surprisingly community-focused. First, it’s totally free and open source to use. Second, Jovo offers a Slack channel for Google and Alexa skill developers using the platform, so you can bounce off ideas or get help from other users if needed. That in itself might make it a great environment for new developers, even if they aren’t so skilled with code.
Conversation.One
Conversation.One is, once again, an excellent choice for developing Google Home actions and Alexa Skills alike thanks to its visual editor. It also offers both a free and a pay-as-you-go plan, making it an affordable option for brand-new skills or those that need more support while scaling.
What sets Conversation.One apart from other platforms, though, is that it can be used to make voice apps as well as text-based chatbots. If you’re developing an application that can be used via voice as well as a text-based platform like Facebook Messenger, this would be an easy platform for implementing it.
VoiceFlow
With VoiceFlow you can design, prototype and build voice apps quickly for Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, IVR’s and beyond – all in the browser. The value of mockups and wireframes and interactive prototypes when creating for web and mobile has been established. You need to get the user experience right before building. Voiceflow brings that familiar product design approach to the world of voice. From design and prototyping, to build and publishing- Voiceflow has you and your team covered.
Bespoken
Bespoken is a popular toolkit for prototyping, testing and monitoring Alexa Skills and Apps for Google Assistant. It is an automated testing and monitoring tool for voice apps, it makes building and testing voice apps 10X faster and easier. It enables you to develop voice apps locally by interacting with voice assistants from an actual device. See activity in real time and make updates without deploying every single change.
These are some of the platforms that make developing voice apps easier and faster. No matter, you are a coder or a non-coder, these platforms are meant for one and all. You just need to have the requirement of getting a voice app developed for yourself or your business.
In case you need some help with getting your voice app developed, you can contact us at sales@pragmatic-voice.com and one of our voice experts will get back to you within 1-2 business days to understand your requirements.
