Technology Insights

AppDirect AI Marketplace—Pioneering AI Innovation & Monetization

By Peush Patel / December 11, 2023

It’s clear that the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has ushered in a new era of innovation and efficiency. Generative AI-powered bots (a.k.a. companions, co-pilots), in particular, have become indispensable tools for businesses seeking to enhance customer engagement and streamline operations. We've already seen a significant surge in demand from companies eager to create AI bots for internal use while also exploring opportunities to monetize them externally. 

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella eloquently captures the essence of this revolution in his statement: 

“We believe in a future where there will be a Copilot for everyone and everything you do. This is as significant as the PC was to the ’80s, the Web in the ’90s, mobile in the 2000s, cloud in the 2010s. Just like you boot up an operating system to access applications or use a browser to navigate websites, you will involve a Copilot to do all these activities and more." —Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO

However, creating AI bots has been a challenging task, demanding specialized coding expertise that is not commonly available. At AppDirect, we experienced this firsthand while developing a customer sales and service bot. Our process started with selecting the most suitable large language model (LLM), then meticulously analyzing the associated unit economics. The challenge further extended to sifting through various libraries, both proprietary and open-source, to find those that fit our specific requirements. The final step was integrating everything for deployment and use, a phase where we recognized both an opportunity and a responsibility to assist other companies facing similar challenges.

For many companies, the journey to effectively monetize these bots involves several intricate steps:

1. Initially Identifying and engaging the appropriate customer segment within the suitable market, then

2. Showcasing the bot's capabilities in a well-curated listing store

3. Establishing a seamless commerce process to ensure straightforward purchasing and utilization of the bot

Enter the AppDirect AI Marketplace—A marketplace solution that empowers customers to build AI bots without coding and to securely share and monetize bots in various marketplaces.

AI bot creation made simple

AppDirect's AI Marketplace starts by breaking down barriers to entry with an intuitive bot creation interface. Whether you're a seasoned developer or a newcomer to the AI scene, our solution provides a guided user-friendly experience to create and manage the AI bot. Almost every team at AppDirect, such as Finance, HR, Engineering, Marketing, and Sales, is utilizing this new feature on our AI solution to deploy their custom-designed bots for internal use.

The AppDirect AI Marketplace empowers you to easily transform your AI bot ideas into reality without needing any coding skills, while also offering a secure platform for sharing and effectively monetizing your bots in various marketplaces.

Contextual understanding

Understanding context is paramount for AI bots to provide meaningful responses. With AppDirect's AI Marketplace, you can provide context and instructions, all from an intuitive user interface, ensuring that your bot comprehends user queries and delivers contextually relevant answers. This not only enhances the user experience but also makes your bot an invaluable asset.

Building a knowledge base with ease

The heart of any AI bot is its knowledge base, and AppDirect's AI Marketplace simplifies this crucial step. This empowers your bot to access relevant information and deliver accurate responses to a wide range of inquiries, ensuring that it's well-informed and capable. You can source the data for retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) from various locations, including your local storage like Google Drive or Azure. Additionally, you can effortlessly scrape data from websites by simply specifying the URL. What's more, you will be able to set data refresh frequencies to keep your bot's knowledge up-to-date. We take care of all the underlying data embeddings and secure storage in the vector database for the efficient utilizations by the LLM.

Unlocking endless possibilities

To take your bot to the next level, the AppDirect AI Marketplace will offer a suite of 3rd party tools & plugins like Code Interpreter. Even without coding skills, you will be able to integrate custom actions and functionalities into your bot, expanding its capabilities in countless ways. This feature allows your bot to perform a wide range of tasks, making it a versatile solution for various needs. Additionally, you'll have the capability to make API calls through function calling, thereby empowering your bot with the ability to take actions autonomously. This is where the real magic will happen

Giving a personality to your bot

Customization is key when it comes to AI bot performance. That’s why we include functionality to fine-tune parameters like temperature, token size, tone, and language. This ensures that your bot aligns perfectly with your brand and business goals. This level of personalization also guarantees a bot that reflects your unique vision.

Security and controlled sharing

Sharing your AI bot securely is paramount, and the AppDirect AI Marketplace delivers robust enterprise grade access control. You can specify who can interact with your bot and to what extent, safeguarding sensitive information and ensuring proper usage. This feature empowers you to share your bot confidently with your team or audience. Developers will also be able to embed the bots directly into their applications through an API.

The AppDirect advantage: Monetize your bot

Through our AppDirect AI marketplace users can also list bots for others to discover and use. You can monetize your bots by setting prices or offering them for free, allowing customers to read the reviews and subsequently purchase them through self-service.

What makes AppDirect.AI so unique is our extensive marketplace expertise. As a subscription commerce platform company, AppDirect brings together technology providers, advisors and businesses to simplify how they buy, sell and manage technology. Our customers monetize both first and third-party products through our subscription commerce solutions. With our AI Marketplace solution, we're extending this success to AI bots, enabling you to not only create powerful bots but also monetize them effectively.

AppDirect powered marketplaces open up exciting opportunities for bot creators to generate income and share their innovative solutions with a broad audience.

The AppDirect AI Marketplace merges our robust digital commerce platform with expertise in marketplaces and digital service monetization, empowering organizations to fully leverage AI. Our distinct advantages:

1. Secure cloud infrastructure for bot deployment

At AppDirect, we understand the importance of data security. That's why we provide a secure cloud infrastructure managed by our experts on Microsoft Azure to store all the data related to your bot. Your information is protected, allowing you to focus on creation and innovation.

2. Your choice of the LLM

Our platform will offer the flexibility to select from a range of leading large language model (LLM) providers, including OpenAI (GPT-4), Google (PaLm-2), Anthropic (Claude), Cohere and others. This allows you to choose an LLM that not only meets the specific needs of your bot but also fits within your budget, guaranteeing the best performance and outcomes. The recent turmoil at OpenAI serves as a clear indication of the risks associated with depending on a single LLM provider for your mission critical business needs. It underscores the inherent desire for diverse options in this rapidly evolving field.

3. Distribution network

AppDirect features a vast ecosystem comprising millions of businesses within the marketplaces powered by the platform. When you create an AI bot with us, you gain access to a massive audience. Distribute your bot to businesses far and wide, expanding your reach and impact like never before. As sellers, AI creators will have access to a variety of pricing strategies, enabling them to optimize their revenue and profit margins.

Stay connected—More updates on the horizon!

Our journey is just beginning, and we are thrilled about the path ahead as we aim to bring large-scale AI innovations to our customers. Stay tuned for more exciting updates coming soon. You can also read more in our AI Marketplace press release.