PJSC Sberbank : Number of apps for Salute virtual assistants on Sber’s SmartMarket platform hits 800

The SmartMarket platform just celebrated its first birthday. Approximately800 smart apps were created on the platform over the past year. SmartMarket users also work with Platform V's PaaS services, SberCloud's cloud-based services, machine learning models, AR/VR technology, SmartSpeech's speech recognition and synthesis services, and much more.

In September 2020, the SberDevices team launched the first version of the platform - a toolkit for creating applications (smart apps) for Sber's Salute virtual assistants. The SmartMarket platform has undergone a transformation over the past year. At Sber's SmartDev tech conference in May 2021, SmartMarket was presented as an access point for all of Sber's technology on the developers.sber.ru portal.

SmartMarket houses a full range of open-source technology for creating smart apps designed by SberDevices: the Plasma design system, the SmartApp Framework for building smart apps using python, and the Salute JS framework for JavaScript design. For user convenience, the platform has organized free tools for developers into one package. The package contains everything a developer needs to create and promote smart apps, as well as Platform V services: tools and libraries for creating data abstraction layers, a FaaS solution for event-driven serverless computing, the Visper service for creating visual content with visual characters, and attractive rewards from chat platform Jivo and cloud-based service provider SberCloud.

SmartMarket uses zero-code and low-code tools - SmartApp Graph and SmartApp Code - in order to make the smart app design process accessible to a wide audience. Even people with minimal programming experience - or no experience whatsoever - can use these tools to create skills. Approximately 60% of developers on SmartMarket use these tools to varying degrees.

In the past year, the two existing SmartMarket app types - ChatApp for texts and CanvasApps for graphics - were joined by Native Apps, Android applications with a graphical userface that work on Sber smart devices. Integration with the Salute virtual assistants enables apps to use voice control, as well as control by gesture, gamepad, contact, or remote. SmartMarket Studio tools can be used to port any completed app designed for Android.

Developers can monetize their smart apps. SmartMarket monetizes apps through SmartPay, a template solution for building payments into an app and fiscalization. Users can make payments with a bank card saved to their profile and issued by any bank. Around 250,000 paymentshave already been made through SmartPay.

Third party developers now have access to new services on SmartMarket - SmartProfile and SmartPush. SmartProfile simplifies the process of placing an order, helping clients to quickly and conveniently upload their address and phone number. SmartPush notifies clients about the status of their order and reminds them about appointments, e.g., a hairdresser's appointment. It enables push notifications from the smart app in the Sber Salute mobile app and on Sber smart devices.

David Rafalovsky, executive vice president at Sberbank, CTO of Sber, head of technology:

"We are grateful to the community of developers working on SmartMarket together with us. This is an excellent example of mutually beneficial cooperation. We are providing them with a unique opportunity to launch their apps on the Sber ecosystem's platform, and they are helping us come up with and create new skills for the Salute virtual assistants. I am convinced that this collaboration will only expand as the SmartMarket grows as an access point for all Sber technology. SmartMarket is also an efficient channel to the Sber ecosystem's audience of over 100 million. We are seeing that individual entrepreneurs and legal entities are becoming more interested in creating their own smart apps. This will enable them to increase current client loyalty and draw in new ones."

A sustainable and active community of over 3,000 developers has formed around SmartMarket over the last year. The developers receive early access to new features on the platform and answer questions in the community chat box. The community participates in regular meetups and contests held by the SmartMarket team.