It’s easier than ever to make Amazon’s smart assistant, Alexa, even more brilliant. You can simply tell Alexa what Skills you want to enable with your voice; no more fumbling with and searching through the Alexa app.
Now, just by saying “Alexa, enable Lyft,” you can add the ability to order a ride with your voice. Amazon also revamped how the app is organized, so it’s easier to search by categories such as Smart Home or Lifestyle.
In just one year, Alexa can has gained 1,400 Skills from third-party developers, which add to the assistant’s built-in abilities. The company says the marketplace grew by 50 percent in just longer than a month. These sills allow you to add a variety of abilities, from ordering a pizza from Domino’s to tuning your guitar or playing games.
Some of the most popular Skills include Jeopardy, Daily Affirmation, Magic 8 Ball, Fitbit and The Bartender. The top 10 most popular Skills account for more than 3 million requests in the last year.
Alexa can be found inside the Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Tap and Fire TV. But that’s not all. Developers are already working to add the assistant to other devices such as the Pebble smartwatch and Triby smart home device for your fridge.
Out of the Box, Alexa can play music, read the news, report the weather, check traffic conditions and sports scores, offer movie schedules, control smart home devices, tell jokes and answer random trivia questions based on what’s available on Wikipedia–and that’s just a few of its native abilities.
