Peter Sbarski

Matchbooks is an app where childrens imaginations become the canvas for incredible storytelling adventures. The app allows children to converse with two AI narrators (a Koala and a Hedgehog) and then create stories complete with beautiful artwork and voiceovers.

We spent the better part of 2023 & 2024 building Matchbooks and learnt a lot of lessons about how AI and serverless fits together. Our system is built on a scalable Serverless backend running in AWS, powered by a suite of services including Lambda, DynamoDB, and Step Functions. Additionally, we employ a number of generative and non-generative AI systems (for conversations, stories, narrations, images) to bring a touch of magic to Matchbooks.

In this session we will explore the idea behind Matchbooks, and our principles and strategies for building an AI-based product thats secure for children. We will discuss our serverless architecture, how we leverage and load balance between different AI systems, and touch on the challenges, problems, and adventures we went through before delivering our product.