Amazon Alexa will receive hundreds of new commands.
It seems that the Amazon is starting to feel the pressure in the home assistant market because of the recently release Google Home. However, the company is keen on putting on a fight. It has recently announced that it will add hundreds of commands to Alexa.
When it comes to virtual home assistants, their key feature is the ability to easily understand what you’re asking them and how many commands they can fulfill. In this regard, Amazon wants to expand both the conversational and response skills available to their platform, as a way to upstage the features provided by Google Home.
Alexa was originally able to manage up to 15 command categories know as intents, that are used with various voice inquiries. The most common intents are stop, cancel, yes, no, and help. Alexa also includes skills called slots, similar to data types. For example, a slot can include the date, number, time, and city.
Until now, users of Amazon Alexa had the option to download and activate around 100 skills from the home assistant’s marketplace. However, with the recent update in commands, that number has grown to over 5,000 skills. The new commands allow Alexa to more naturally learn and adapt to how its users are asking questions and thus could establish an outcome. Alexa could end a conversation by telling a joke, adding a calendar appointment, setting an alarm, and more.
Amazon will continue to add more intents, slots, and commands during the new few weeks for Alexa as the company continually improves how the assistant understands and responds to users. This will provide users with more options, flexibility, and make Alexa a more versatile and appealing service to more users. This is especially important since, until recently, there weren’t any noteworthy competitors.
The new commands update will be included in the Alexa Skills Kit. The kit was initially available only in the US, and it contains various tools which developers can use to create various skills. Additionally, by adding new intents and slots, Amazon will simplify the developer’s work and also save them time.
Do you own an Amazon Alexa? If so, are you excited about the increased number of commands and skills coming in the future?
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