Say the Word! Amazon's Alexa will Fetch it for You
Etailer to introduce its
Alexa Voice Service along with Echo speakers here by the end of this year
You will soon be able to
ask Amazon's voice-assistant Alexa to book an Uber or play your favourite
music, and without switching to English. Amazon is preparing to introduce its
Alexa Voice Service (AVS) along with its Echo speakers in India towards the end
of this year, according to two people aware of the company's plans.
The speakers will initially
be launched with an English interface and be updated later to respond to
commands in regional Indian languages including Marathi, Tamil and Hindi, these
people said, declining to be identified. A multilingual interface is being
developed at Amazon's Chennai facility, one of them said. Amazon did not reply
to an email query from ET. Alexa on Echo, similar to Google Assistant on Home,
will offer India's tech-savvy elites a unique technology combo that can sit in
their homes or offices and execute their commands such as to buy groceries
online or book a cab. For online purchases, Alexa will link to Amazon's online
marketplace, the second-largest in India. More than that, Alexa will be crucial
to Amazon's efforts to woo urban custo mers in India, specifically the top 1%
who typically are members of its Prime subscription service that promises
faster delivery and other benefits -although hurdles exist.
Barriers such as two-factor
authentication for payments and large family structures could complicate matters
for Alexa in India.
“We will work around these
barriers using passphrases and other India-specific innovations,“ said a senior
executive at Amazon on condition of anonymity. “We expect Amazon to launch
(Alexa and Echo) in the Indian market with very attractive pricing offers in
the beginning, a similar strategy used with Amazon Prime Video and something
that worked well,“ said an analyst. “These offerings are likely to be linked
with existing users of Amazon's services in India, making it more appealing for
them.“
Amazon has distributed its
Echo speakers to select company executives, business professionals and analysts
in India for testing.
“As of now, there is still
a barrier to the extent of Alexa's capabilities because you cannot use it to
purchase groceries from a local store or book yourself an Uber,“ said one of
these business professionals who has been using the Echo device for about a
month.
“However, when connected to
your home WiFi you can get Alexa to draft and send work emails, text messages, help
children with their homework ranging from mat hematics to history lessons, set
up re minders, check food recipes, play music or a movie on Amazon Prime Video,
and even do your shopping from Amazon,“ this per son said. Once launched
officially, Echo should allow users to book flight and movie tickets or hail a
cab to work. In an interview to ET this month, Amazon India head, Amit Agarwal,
indicated that the company was working on easing hurdles caused by language
barriers.
“How will you help people
who are not very well-versed with English? How will they shop? Indians are very
well versed in buying but when they want service, they want to talk in the
language they know,“ Agarwal said. The basic Echo Dot version costs $50 in the
US, and the high-end version, $179.
The Echo-branded speakers,
launched in the US in 2015, account for 70.6% of the voice-enabled speaker
market in that country, according to a report by eMarketer in May. Amazon
introduced AVS and Echo in the UK and Germany in February.
“Alexa brings a fun and
intuitive user-experience by allowing customers to control services using voice
command... It will not be easy for competitors to copy it in a short time as it
took Amazon years of R&D to deliver Alexa. Amazon, of course, will need to
support local languages and get local businesses and developers to build skills
on the Alexa platform,“ said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner.
Say the Word! Amazon's Alexa will Fetch it for You
|
Shashwati
Shankar & Payal Ganguly
|
|
Bengaluru:
|
Etailer to introduce its
Alexa Voice Service along with Echo speakers here by the end of this year
You will soon be able to
ask Amazon's voice-assistant Alexa to book an Uber or play your favourite
music, and without switching to English. Amazon is preparing to introduce its
Alexa Voice Service (AVS) along with its Echo speakers in India towards the end
of this year, according to two people aware of the company's plans.
The speakers will initially
be launched with an English interface and be updated later to respond to
commands in regional Indian languages including Marathi, Tamil and Hindi, these
people said, declining to be identified. A multilingual interface is being
developed at Amazon's Chennai facility, one of them said. Amazon did not reply
to an email query from ET. Alexa on Echo, similar to Google Assistant on Home,
will offer India's tech-savvy elites a unique technology combo that can sit in
their homes or offices and execute their commands such as to buy groceries
online or book a cab. For online purchases, Alexa will link to Amazon's online
marketplace, the second-largest in India. More than that, Alexa will be crucial
to Amazon's efforts to woo urban custo mers in India, specifically the top 1%
who typically are members of its Prime subscription service that promises
faster delivery and other benefits -although hurdles exist.
Barriers such as two-factor
authentication for payments and large family structures could complicate
matters for Alexa in India.
“We will work around these
barriers using passphrases and other India-specific innovations,“ said a senior
executive at Amazon on condition of anonymity. “We expect Amazon to launch
(Alexa and Echo) in the Indian market with very attractive pricing offers in
the beginning, a similar strategy used with Amazon Prime Video and something
that worked well,“ said an analyst. “These offerings are likely to be linked
with existing users of Amazon's services in India, making it more appealing for
them.“
Amazon has distributed its
Echo speakers to select company executives, business professionals and analysts
in India for testing.
“As of now, there is still
a barrier to the extent of Alexa's capabilities because you cannot use it to
purchase groceries from a local store or book yourself an Uber,“ said one of
these business professionals who has been using the Echo device for about a
month.
“However, when connected to
your home WiFi you can get Alexa to draft and send work emails, text messages,
help children with their homework ranging from mat hematics to history lessons,
set up re minders, check food recipes, play music or a movie on Amazon Prime
Video, and even do your shopping from Amazon,“ this per son said. Once launched
officially, Echo should allow users to book flight and movie tickets or hail a
cab to work. In an interview to ET this month, Amazon India head, Amit Agarwal,
indicated that the company was working on easing hurdles caused by language
barriers.
“How will you help people
who are not very well-versed with English? How will they shop? Indians are very
well versed in buying but when they want service, they want to talk in the
language they know,“ Agarwal said. The basic Echo Dot version costs $50 in the
US, and the high-end version, $179.
The Echo-branded speakers,
launched in the US in 2015, account for 70.6% of the voice-enabled speaker
market in that country, according to a report by eMarketer in May. Amazon
introduced AVS and Echo in the UK and Germany in February.
“Alexa brings a fun and
intuitive user-experience by allowing customers to control services using voice
command... It will not be easy for competitors to copy it in a short time as it
took Amazon years of R&D to deliver Alexa. Amazon, of course, will need to
support local languages and get local businesses and developers to build skills
on the Alexa platform,“ said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner.
|
Shashwati
Shankar & Payal Ganguly
|
|
Bengaluru:
|
ET29JUN17
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