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Isaiah Kim
Isaiah Kim

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Remi: AI receptionist for local service businesses on WhatsApp

#gemini #nextjs #hackathon #twilio

What it is

Remi is an AI receptionist for local service businesses — salons, barbers, cleaners, trades — that handles the full customer lifecycle over WhatsApp, 24/7, without human involvement.

Built for the Build with Gemini XPRIZE Hackathon.

Live: https://remiai.vercel.app
Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo2M5RJ5I5Q
Repo: https://github.com/kyisaiah47/remi

Why I built it

Local service businesses lose customers to missed messages every day. A customer texts at 9pm asking to book a haircut — they might get a reply the next morning, if at all. Remi handles that conversation automatically: answering instantly, booking through natural conversation, and following up without anyone on staff doing anything.

How it works

  1. A customer sends a WhatsApp message to the business's Twilio number.
  2. Twilio fires a webhook to /api/webhook/sms on a Next.js server running on Vercel.
  3. Gemini 2.5 Flash processes the message with full conversation history and business context (name, hours, services, FAQs, today's date). When it detects booking intent, it emits a BOOKING_JSON object.
  4. The booking and conversation thread are saved to Firebase Firestore.
  5. A reply goes back to the customer via Twilio.

For reminders: a cron job via cron-job.org hits /api/reminders every 15 minutes (Vercel Hobby doesn't support sub-daily crons) and sends WhatsApp messages 24h and 1h before each confirmed appointment. After a visit, Remi follows up automatically and prompts the customer for a review.

Features

  • Instant replies, 24/7 — answers every inbound message: hours, pricing, availability
  • Automatic booking — collects name, service, and time through natural conversation
  • Reminder sequences — 24h and 1h reminders before each appointment
  • Review collection — automated follow-up after each visit
  • Full dashboard — every conversation, booking, and interaction in one place
  • Stripe subscriptions — $149/month with a 7-day free trial

Stack

Layer Technology
AI Google Gemini 2.5 Flash
Messaging Twilio + WhatsApp Business API
Backend Next.js 16 API Routes
Database Firebase Firestore
Auth NextAuth + Google OAuth
Payments Stripe
Hosting Vercel

Code is MIT licensed: https://github.com/kyisaiah47/remi

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