Building Conversational AI Interfaces with Agora Agent UI Kit (Complete Beginner-to-Pro Guide)

The way users interact with applications is changing fast.

From static UIs to real-time, conversational, and multimodal experiences, modern apps are expected to feel more human — supporting voice, chat, video, and even emotional intelligence.

But building such systems from scratch is complex.

👉 That’s where Agora Agent UI Kit comes in.

In this guide, you’ll learn:

• What Agora Agent UI Kit is
• How its architecture works
• Step-by-step setup (beginner friendly)
• How to build voice, chat, and real-time AI interfaces

What is Agora Agent UI Kit?

Agora Agent UI Kit is a React component library built for creating AI-powered user interfaces such as:

• Conversational chat apps
• Voice assistants
• Video-based AI agents
• Biomarker-driven UI (emotion & wellness)

It provides a plug-and-play UI layer, so you don’t have to build everything from scratch.

It includes modular components for voice, chat, video, and biomarker-based AI interfaces.

Architecture Overview

Below is how the system is structured:

Key Idea

The UI kit is divided into modular entry points:

• Base
  Core UI components (chat, voice, video, layout)
  👉 No additional dependencies required
• RTC
  Handles real-time audio and video interactions
  👉 Requires agora-rtc-react
• Session
  Connects UI directly to AI agents and manages conversations
  👉 Requires agora-agent-client-toolkit and agora-agent-client-toolkit-react
• Thymia
  Enables biomarker and emotion-based UI features
  👉 Requires agora-rtm-sdk

This ensures:

• Smaller bundle size
• Flexibility
• Easy scaling

Why Use Agora Agent UI Kit?

Building conversational AI UIs manually involves:

• Managing real-time streams
• Handling state and transcripts
• Designing consistent UI

This library abstracts all of that.

Benefits

• Faster development
• Built-in voice support
• Real-time communication
• Modular architecture
• Tailwind-based styling

Beginner Step-by-Step Guide

Let’s build your first AI interface.

Step 1: Create a React App

npx create-next-app@latest my-ai-app
cd my-ai-app

Step 2: Install the UI Kit

npm install agora-agent-uikit

‍React and ReactDOM are required peer dependencies.

Step 3: Setup Tailwind CSS

npm install -D tailwindcss postcss autoprefixer
npx tailwindcss init -p

Update config:

export default {
  content: [
    './src/**/*.{js,ts,jsx,tsx}',
    './node_modules/agora-agent-uikit/dist/**/*.{js,mjs}',
  ],
};

Step 4: Build Your First Voice UI

import { useState } from 'react';
import { MicButton, AgentVisualizer } from 'agora-agent-uikit';
export default function App() {
  const [micState, setMicState] = useState('idle');
  return (
    <div className="flex flex-col items-center justify-center h-screen gap-6">
      <AgentVisualizer state="ambient" />
      <MicButton
        state={micState}
        onClick={() =>
          setMicState((s) => (s === 'idle' ? 'listening' : 'idle'))
        }
      />
    </div>
  );
}

You now have a working voice UI

Step 5: Add Real-Time Audio

npm install agora-rtc-react
import { MicButtonWithVisualizer, MicSelector } from 'agora-agent-uikit/rtc';

Step 6: Connect to AI Agent

npm install agora-agent-client-toolkit agora-agent-client-toolkit-react
import { ConversationalAIProvider } from 'agora-agent-client-toolkit-react';
<ConversationalAIProvider config={{ channel: 'demo' }}>
  <YourApp />
</ConversationalAIProvider>

Step 7: Add Biomarker UI

npm install agora-rtm-sdk
import { ThymiaPanel } from 'agora-agent-uikit/thymia';
<ThymiaPanel biomarkers={{ happy: 0.7 }} isConnected />

How Everything Works Together

Customization

Tailwind-based styling:

<MicButton className="ring-2 ring-blue-500" />

Components Overview

Voice

• MicButton
• AgentVisualizer

Chat

• SessionTranscript
• ChatInput

Video

• VideoGrid
• Avatar UI

Advanced

• ThymiaPanel

All components are modular and reusable.

Development & Testing

pnpm test
pnpm build
pnpm typecheck

Includes a demo Next.js app for reference.

Final Thoughts

Modern AI apps are becoming:

• Voice-first
• Real-time
• Emotion-aware

Agora Agent UI Kit helps you build all of this — fast.

Instead of worrying about infrastructure, you can focus on:

👉 Creating meaningful AI experiences

When Should You Use It?

Use this if you’re building:

• AI copilots
• Voice assistants
• Chat apps
• Telehealth platforms
• Emotion-aware systems

‍