How to Create a Virtual Assistant

Navigating through your phone and applications has never been easier with a virtual assistant, and we, as humans, love everything that makes our lives comfortable. A voice assistant is not a “nice-to-have” feature in an application but a must-have one developed even for MVPs.
As one of the most popular open-source frameworks, Flutter is widely used for building apps, and creating a virtual assistant with Flutter will open up exciting possibilities for streamlining tasks and enhancing user experiences. Utilize the Flutter cross-platform framework and learn how to create a virtual assistant app that operates seamlessly on multiple devices.
Let’s explore the process of building a virtual assistant with Flutter and discuss why virtual assistants are gaining popularity. We'll also highlight the advantages of using Flutter for virtual assistant development.

Set up the project

The first step in creating a virtual assistant is to set up the project. You will go through the process of setting up the Flutter SDK and configuring a code editor to ensure a smooth development experience.

Install Flutter SDK

The Flutter SDK is the foundation of the development environment. It provides the necessary tools and libraries to build Flutter applications. The installation of the Flutter SDK is platform-specific.

For Windows

• Download the Flutter SDK for Windows from the official Flutter website and extract the file.
• Add the Flutter bin directory to your system's PATH variable.
• Verify the installation by running the "flutter doctor" command in the terminal.

For macOS

• Download the Flutter SDK for macOS from the official Flutter website and extract the file.
• Add the Flutter bin directory to your system's PATH variable.
• Verify the installation by running the "flutter doctor" command in the terminal.

For Linux

• Download the Flutter SDK for Linux from the official Flutter website and extract the file.
• Add the Flutter bin directory to your system's PATH variable.
• Verify the installation by running the "flutter doctor" command in the terminal.

flutter create my_assistant

Configure a Code Editor

Efficient development depends on choosing a suitable code editor. Luckily, Flutter is compatible with different code editors, including Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ IDEA, and Android Studio. Let’s stick to one of the most widely used code editors, Visual Studio Code, and have a sneak peak at the set up instructions.

• Install Visual Studio Code from the official website and open it.
• Choose extensions tab to install the "Dart" and "Flutter" extensions.
• Set the path to the Flutter SDK in Visual Studio Code.

Once the Flutter SDK is installed and your code editor is properly configured, you can now start developing virtual voice assistants. The Flutter SDK has a command-line interface to create and manage your projects, run tests, and build applications for different platforms.

Create the user interface

The user interface is a crucial aspect of the virtual assistant that directly impacts the user experience.

Design the layout

Flutter offers a flexible layout system with widgets to create responsive and adaptable UIs. Consider the following steps when designing your layout:

Create text fields and buttons

Flutter has numerous widgets to handle user input and trigger actions. Use the TextField widget for input fields and buttons with the RaisedButton or FlatButton widgets.

Add Animations

If you want enhanced user experience and interactivity, you can add some animated details with Flutter's AnimatedOpacity, SlideTransition, or RotationTransition widgets.

Integrate natural language processing

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is the core of voice assistants' ability to understand and respond to user commands effectively. Here is what you need to do.

Understand NLP

As said, NLP enables your virtual assistant to analyze and interpret natural language input from users. It involves techniques such as language understanding, sentiment analysis, and entity recognition. Use NLP platforms that simplify the implementation of these techniques with pre-trained models and APIs.

Choose an NLP platform

Several NLP platforms are available for integration with Flutter applications. Two popular platforms for integration with Flutter applications are Dialogflow and Wit.ai:

• Dialogflow by Google is a comprehensive NLP platform with advanced features for building conversational interfaces. It provides a natural language understanding API to train your virtual assistant to recognize user intents and generate appropriate responses.
• Wit.ai by Facebook provides a simple and flexible API to analyze text and extract relevant information. With Wit.ai you will define custom intents and context to tailor the language understanding of your virtual assistant.

Integrate with Flutter

After choosing an NLP platform, integrate it with Flutter.

• Obtain credentials and API keys and install the relevant Flutter packages. For Dialogflow, you can use the 'flutter_dialogflow' package, while the 'wit_ai' package is available for Wit.ai integration.
• Configure your virtual assistant to send user inputs to the NLP platform for analysis.
• Parse the responses from the NLP platform to process the user's commands and generate relevant responses.

Train the language

Dialogflow and Wit.ai provide interfaces for training your virtual assistant's language understanding capabilities. Use simple phrases to enhance accuracy and performance, improve entity recognition, and refine the dialogue flow.

Implement voice commands

Voice commands add a new dimension of interactivity to your virtual assistant. To get them in your Flutter app, use the speech_to_text and text_to_speech packages.

Understand speech recognition

The process of converting spoken language into written text enables your virtual assistant to understand commands spoken aloud. The speech_to_text package provides the necessary tools to implement speech recognition in your virtual assistant application.

Set up the speech_to_text package

• Add the speech_to_text package as a dependency in your project's pubspec.yaml file.
• Run the "flutter pub get" command in the terminal.
• Initialize the speech_to_text instance in your Flutter code.
• Request microphone permission from the user to access the device's microphone for speech input.

Implement speech recognition

• Capture the spoken text and process it within your Flutter application.
• Analyze and interpret the recognized text.
• Generate appropriate responses.

Enable text-to-speech conversion

• Add the text_to_speech package as a dependency in your project's pubspec.yaml file.
• Fetch and install the package using the "flutter pub get" command.
• Configure the text_to_speech settings.
• Generate spoken output using the text_to_speech package.

Add functionality

Time to enhance your virtual assistant with features such as retrieving information from APIs or databases, sending messages, setting reminders, and making calls.

Retrieving information from APIs or databases: Apply the steps to integrate APIs to fetch and display real-time information to users.

• Identify the APIs with the necessary data for your virtual assistant.
• Use Flutter's networking libraries to make HTTP requests and retrieve data.
• Parse and process the response data to extract information.
• Display information to the user through the UI.

Sending Messages: Integrate a messaging service (Firebase Cloud Messaging) to enable your virtual assistant to send messages.

Setting Reminders: Allow users to set reminders by utilizing a local database or cloud-based service like Firebase Firestore.

Making Calls: Enable calls from the application by implementing Flutter's telephony or call handling packages.

Test and Debug

Here, everything is clear. Any functionality should be tested to provide a smooth and stressless user experience.

Why do you need a virtual assistant in your app? Conclusion

We do love giving users all the functionality and freedom within our apps, and the virtual assistant is the feature you won’t want to miss. The article took you through the process of creating a virtual assistant using Flutter, a powerful framework for building cross-platform applications. With this feature, you will gain:

• Enhanced user experience
• Increased efficiency and productivity
• Personalized and contextualized assistance
• Competitive advantage
• Scalability and flexibility