🚀 Aven — Your AI-Powered Personal Assistant That Actually Gets Things Done

🎯 Inspiration

We believe productivity shouldn't require juggling 10 apps and endless tabs. Talking to an AI should feel like delegating tasks to a real assistant — intuitive, natural, and efficient.

That’s why we built Aven, your AI personal assistant that manages your email, calendar, documents, and even web research — all through simple voice or chat commands.

🏗️ How We Built It

• Conversational AI Core

  • Powered by ElevenLabs AI for real-time voice conversations
  • Integrated with PicaOS, giving Aven secure access to Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs & Sheets
  • Enhanced with Tavily Search for live internet lookups and knowledge tasks

• Robust Infrastructure

  • Next.js (App Router) for a sleek, responsive UI with smart routing
  • Supabase for authentication, scalable Postgres database, real-time features, and Edge Functions
  • Stripe for token-based billing with dynamic pricing tiers
  • Precise token deduction system based on real-time AI call durations

• UX Considerations

  • Sidebar-first navigation on large screens; optimized, minimal UI for mobile
  • Clean, distraction-free layout modeled after ChatGPT and Claude AI
  • Real-time token dashboards so users see exactly how their AI usage translates to value

💡 What We Learned

• Real-world AI assistants need invisible complexity — users shouldn't care how APIs, tokens, or permissions work behind the scenes
• Supabase RLS (Row-Level Security) and JWT enforcement can break things silently — understanding that saved us
• Background task handling (with polling mechanisms) prevents AI timeouts for longer-running automation tasks
• Clean UI structure dramatically affects user trust, especially on mobile

⚡ Challenges We Tackled

• AI request timeouts: Solved by decoupling long tasks into background processes, linked to real-time status tracking
• Securing token deduction: Rebuilt the system so deductions happen strictly server-side, based on exact execution time
• Supabase Edge intricacies: Tweaked default security to allow external webhooks (e.g., Stripe) while maintaining app-level protections
• Iterating on UX: Merging sleek design with powerful backend logic took multiple rounds to get right

Built With

• elevenlabs
• pica
• tavily