Why Alexa?

  Alexa, the voice service that powers Echo, provides capabilities, or skills, that enable customers to interact with devices in a more intuitive way using voice. Examples of these skills include the ability to play music, answer general questions, set an alarm or timer and more. Alexa is built in the cloud, so it is always getting smarter. The more customers use Alexa, the more she adapts to speech patterns, vocabulary, and personal preferences. With Alexa, developers can build new voice experiences and take advantage of the following benefits:

  Alexa Skills Kit

  The Alexa Skills Kit is a collection of self-service APIs, tools, documentation and code samples that make it fast and easy for you to add skills to Alexa. All of the code runs in the cloud - nothing is installed on any user device. With the Alexa Skills Kit, you can create compelling, hands-free voice experiences by adding your own skills to Alexa. Customers can access these new skills on any Alexa-enabled device simply by asking Alexa a question or making a command.

  Alexa Voice Service

  Alexa Voice Service (AVS) is an intelligent and scalable cloud service that adds voice-enabled experiences to any connected product - all you need is a microphone and speaker. Users can simply talk to their Alexa-enabled products to play music, answer questions, get news and local information, control smart home products and more. And with the free Amazon Alexa app, users can easily control and manage their products from anywhere. If you are interested in adding rich and intuitive experiences to your products - Alexa is the right choice for you!

  Alexa Fund

  The Alexa Fund--named for Alexa, the cloud-based voice service that powers Amazon Echo--provides up to $100 million in investments to fuel voice technology innovation. Whether that's creating new Alexa capabilities with the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK), building devices that use Alexa for new and novel voice experiences using the Alexa Voice Service (AVS), or something else entirely, if you have a visionary idea, we'd love to talk to you.