Help Optimize My SMS/Voice AI Integration - 8 Operations Per Response Seems Excessive

How To
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Hey Make Community! :waving_hand:

My automation is working perfectly, but I’m concerned about efficiency and long-term costs. Looking for your expert advice on optimization.

Current Setup: I’ve built an SMS chatbot that mirrors my Retell AI voice agent using the same phone number. The goal is seamless omnichannel experience - customers can either call or text the same number and get consistent AI responses.

The Problem: My current flow uses 8 operations per single customer response:

  • Webhook (incoming SMS)
  • Webhook Response 204 (Twilio acknowledgment)
  • Twilio (List Messages)
  • Array Aggregator (for conversation history)
  • JSON Transform (for conversation history)
  • OpenAI (GPT completion with context)
  • Twilio (Send Reply)
  • Plus some additional processing

The Math That Worries Me:

  • If on average 10 message exchanges per customer conversation = 80 customers on a single customer alone.
  • At scale, this could get expensive fast.
  • Industry standard seems to be 3-5 operations per response.

Context on Array + JSON: I’m using Array Aggregator + JSON Transform to maintain conversation history so OpenAI has context for more natural responses. Not sure if this is the most efficient approach.

My Questions:

  1. Is there a way to reduce operations while maintaining the webhook response (required for Twilio)?
  2. Do I really need the “List Messages” step if I’m getting the message content from the webhook?
  3. Should I use Data Stores instead of Array Aggregator + JSON for conversation history?
  4. Would OpenAI Assistant API be more efficient for handling conversation context?
  5. Any other best practices for SMS/AI integrations that I’m missing?

Use Case Context: The same phone number handles both Retell AI voice calls and SMS. I want the SMS responses to match the voice agent’s personality and knowledge base while maintaining conversation context.

Would love to hear how you’ve optimized similar workflows! Any suggestions for improving this without breaking functionality?

Thanks in advance! :folded_hands:

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2

Hopefully someone would be able to actually help me on this one. :slight_smile:

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