What is Amazon Alexa

Alexa is Amazon’s cloud-based voice service and the brain behind tens of millions of devices including the Echo family of devices, Fire TV, Fire Tablet, and third-party devices with Alexa built-in. You can build voice experiences, or skills, that make everyday tasks faster, easier, and more delightful for customers

How Alexa Works

Alexa is powered by the same deep learning technologies that power Amazon Lex (a service that helps you build conversational interfaces like chatbots).

The advanced deep learning functionalities of automatic speech recognition (ASR) for converting speech to text, and natural language understanding (NLU) to recognize the intent of the text, enable you to build applications with highly engaging user experiences and lifelike conversational interactions.

1. To launch the skill, say “Alexa, open Hello World.”
2. Alexa sends the utterance open Hello World to the Alexa service in cloud. There, the utterance is processed via automatic speech recognition for converting speech to text, and natural language understanding to recognize the intent of the text.
3. Alexa sends the JSON request to handle intent to the AWS Lambda function in the cloud. The Lambda function acts a backend and executes the code to handle the intent. Let’s say in this case, the Lambda function just returns a ‘Welcome to the Hello World skill’. The response is also in JSON format.
4. The Lambda function sends the response back to the Alexa service, which converts the text in the response back to speech and sends it to Alexa. The response can be sent to both audio and visual formats of Alexa.

You can build voice experiences with Alexa in different ways.

1. Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) : The Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) is a collection of self-service APIs, tools, documentation, and code samples that makes it fast and easy for you to add skills to Alexa. ASK enables designers, developers, and brands to build engaging skills and reach customers through tens of millions of Alexa-enabled devices

2. Alexa Voice Service (AVS): Alexa built-in is a category of devices created with the Alexa Voice Service (AVS) that have a microphone and speaker. You can talk to these products directly with the wake word “Alexa,” and receive voice responses and content instantly. Alexa built-in products work with Alexa skills and Alexa-compatible smart home devices, bringing familiar capabilities from the Amazon Echo family of devices to a range of new form factors and use cases developed by leading brands

3. Alexa for Business: Alexa for Business from Amazon Web Services makes it easy for organizations to use Alexa in the workplace, providing tools to manage Alexa devices, enroll users, and assign skills at scale. Now you can build smart custom skills using the Alexa Skills Kit and Alexa for Business APIs and make them available as private skills to organizations.

With Alexa for Business, organizations can provide shared Alexa devices for anyone to use in common areas around the workplace as well as personal Alexa devices for employees to use. Shared devices allow Alexa to simplify conference rooms, and help around the office, and anyone can access them. Personal devices let Alexa help users be more productive throughout their day, at work or at home.

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4. Alexa Smart Home : Alexa is Amazon’s voice service and the brain behind tens of millions of devices like the Amazon Echo family of devices, FireTV, Fire Tablet, and third-party devices with Alexa native smart home voice user interface. Customers can use Alexa to control smart devices such as cameras, door locks, entertainment systems, lighting, and thermostats. By connecting your device to Alexa, you can increase customer awareness and engagement with your smart devices. You can use our native smart home voice user interface, features such as Alexa Routines and Groups, and more. And, you can certify your connected devices through the Works with Alexa program to ensure an intuitive, hassle-free experience, and to make it easy for customers to discover them online and offline

5. Alexa Gadgets: Alexa Gadgets are part of a category of fun and delightful accessories that pair to compatible Echo devices via Bluetooth. Alexa Gadgets extend Alexa’s capabilities to new modalities with motors, lights, sound chips, and more.

6. Alexa Auto: The Alexa Auto SDK brings the Alexa experience that has delighted customers at home into the vehicle. It adds automotive-specific functionality and contextualizes the experience for the vehicle. It includes source code and function libraries in C++ and Java that enable your vehicle to process audio inputs and triggers, establish a connection with the Alexa service, and handle all Alexa interactions. The SDK also includes sample applications, build scripts, sequence diagrams and documentation, supporting Android, Automotive Grade Linux (AGL), and QNX operating systems on ARM and x86 processor architectures

7. Alexa for Hospitality: Alexa for Hospitality integrates seamlessly with your existing amenities and services, to become your guests’ virtual concierge. Alexa simplifies tasks for guests like playing music, ordering towels, controlling in-room temperature or lighting, finding local restaurants and attractions, calling, and even checking out. Alexa makes delivering a great customer experience simple. Just ask.