If your phone is receiving notifications, why can’t your smart speaker? Thankfully, Amazon is currently doing something. According to reports, Amazon has announced that third-party developers start using the Alexa assistant voice recognition to personalize their apps. These changes, together with other enhancements have been reported at Amazon’s re:Invent conference that happened in Las Vegas. During this conference, the company also focused on the information behind its Alexa voice platform.
Alexa is the first to get this functionality. With this, owners of Amazon echo will be able to ask it to read any notifications originating from third parties such as the weather threats from AccuWeather or the headlines from Washington Post. This will allow you to just place your Android or Smart Phone to do the same. Because of this, developers will require new tools such as Alexa Skills kit and Alexa voice service. This means that the kind of notifications is only limited to what developers want to add.
According to strategy analytics, Alexa smart speakers will be at 68% by the end of the year although other news put it at 76 percent. Due to this, Amazon has been able to produce developer interest even though there was lack of monetization for this model until recently when the paid subscription was introduced. Although there is a delay in allowing developers to earn from their effort, Amazon claims that there is over 25,000 third part skills and an increase in active customers by over 5 times.
The company is now offering skilled developers a sure way to engage their customers rather than depending on voice commands. According to the company, its increasing support for the notifications means that more developers can now alert end users about the new contents and updates using audio cues and lights. This feature was officially introduced in September and uses the light on Alexa devices which can turn green to show that there is something new. Some of the early testers included AccuWeather, Washington Post, and locator life360. These companies used the notifications to alert you about severe weather, breaking news, and family updates. The lights can then be accompanied with short audio to indicate that there is information or a new content available.
Moreover, the company said that developers can now access new technology that recognizes the voices of those who are using the apps. According to Amazon, this is already available for select skills such as weather, news, and food delivery among many more.
Although it will take time before these features see full adoption, they show the importance of Alexa to Amazon. As opposed to a company service, it’s an entire program. If Amazon is going to stay ahead of Apple and Google in this area then it requires a voice assistant with some features that its rivals don’t have. During its keynote address, the company talked about some technologies such as improvements to skill builder’s tool, speech synthesis markup, Alexa skill speech cons, command line interface and natural language and understanding. It also reported the winner of its Alexa price competition.
Judy Jackson is a digital marketing professional and a prolific writer for Frogman.org.uk. With over a decade of experience in the industry, Judy specializes in crafting compelling content that helps businesses enhance their online presence and connect with their target audience.