Case Study: Astro achieves faster, more efficient email management with an in-app voice assistant built on Amazon Web Services

Astro Improves Email Efficiency with Voice Assistant Based on Amazon Lex

Astro is an email app startup that set out to reduce the cognitive overhead of managing crowded inboxes by surfacing urgent messages, automating routine actions, and unlocking value from unstructured email data. The company’s challenge was to add a safe, convenient voice interface so users could manage email hands-free—in situations like driving or getting ready—without building complex AI capabilities from scratch.

Astro built Astrobot Voice using Amazon Lex and other AWS services (Amazon Aurora, S3, ElastiCache), reusing logic from its Alexa skill and launching the in-app voice assistant in about six weeks. The result was rapid user adoption and operational efficiency: a 250% spike in web sessions on launch day, three times more new users in the first week, over a third of Astrobot users trying voice on day one, and reduced server-operations staffing needs (one FTE versus an estimated five).

Astro

Andy Pflaum

Cofounder & Chief Executive Officer