Overview

VisualBrief is a real-time consultation platform for painting commission consultations. It replaces traditional live discovery calls with an asynchronous AI voice agent powered by ElevenLabs ConvAI. The system conducts voice consultations while displaying visual choices (painting styles, color palettes, finishes) at key moments, building a structured "painting brief" that captures all client preferences.

Problem

Freelance artists conducting painting commissions spend significant time on live discovery calls with potential clients to understand their preferences, vision, and requirements. These synchronous calls are time-consuming, difficult to schedule across time zones, and limit the number of clients an artist can serve. Artists often face miscommunication about aesthetic preferences during verbal-only conversations. Visual references are crucial for art commissions, but traditional phone or video calls make it difficult to share and discuss visual options efficiently. This creates a bottleneck in acquiring new commissions and scaling the consultation process.

Solution

An asynchronous AI-powered consultation platform that combines voice interaction with real-time visual context:

Key Features:

  • AI voice agent conducting painting consultations without requiring artist presence
  • Real-time visual prompt display showing style options, color palettes, and finish examples during conversation
  • Structured "painting brief" generation capturing style, palette, vibe, rooms, timeline, budget, and constraints
  • WebSocket-based real-time communication for seamless interaction
  • Notes panel for tracking conversation highlights and key decisions
  • Session summary view for artist review and project evaluation
  • 24/7 availability eliminating scheduling conflicts across time zones

Benefits:

  • Artists can review structured briefs asynchronously and accept/decline projects on their schedule
  • Clients receive immediate consultation without waiting for artist availability
  • Visual references ensure clarity on aesthetic preferences
  • Eliminates back-and-forth scheduling and reduces time investment per client
  • Enables artists to scale their consultation capacity without additional time investment

Technical Architecture

Built on a modern real-time web stack optimized for conversational AI with visual context:

Frontend:

  • React 18 with TypeScript for type-safe interactive UI

Backend & Real-time Communication:

  • WebSocket for bidirectional real-time communication
  • PostgreSQL for persistent data storage

AI Integration:

  • ElevenLabs ConvAI for natural voice agent interactions
  • Visual prompt synchronization system displaying relevant images during conversation
  • Structured brief generation from natural language conversations

Challenges

Creating a voice agent that could discuss creative work intelligently while maintaining context about visual preferences required sophisticated conversation design and prompt engineering. The system needed to reference visual materials naturally without feeling scripted. Synchronizing visual prompts with conversation flow was critical - images needed to appear at appropriate moments to support the discussion without interrupting the natural dialogue. The WebSocket implementation needed to be robust and handle network interruptions gracefully. Capturing unstructured creative preferences and converting them into actionable project briefs required careful data structuring. The system needed to extract key details (style, palette, timeline, budget) from natural conversation while maintaining the nuance of client vision.

Results & Impact

VisualBrief successfully automates initial commission consultations while maintaining the quality and depth of information gathered. Artists report significant time savings and improved work-life balance as the system handles consultations around the clock. The combination of voice AI with synchronized visual context solves the communication challenge inherent in discussing visual preferences. Clients receive a better consultation experience with immediate access rather than scheduling delays, while artists receive structured, detailed briefs for project evaluation. The platform demonstrates that AI can handle complex creative consultations when provided with appropriate visual context. By eliminating scheduling conflicts and enabling asynchronous review, the system allows artists to scale their commission business without sacrificing consultation quality or time investment per client.