Coming soon to Amazon Alexa’s rapidly expanding skill set? Going to work.
As its annual re:Invent cloud services conference is going off in Vegas this week, Amazon announced that it will be rolling out a new toolbox that will make it easier to program Amazon’s Alexa into workplace applications, according to sources who spoke to CNBC.
It seems that Amazon will soon be formally announcing an Alexa for Business Platform, with both a set of early partners and business-focused skills. Theoretical applications include using Alexa to enter conference calls or adding data to enterprise-focused sales programs. It would also add more personalized features, like an enterprise security capable of both identifying and verifying various people using the app in a single workplace.
Amazon will also likely announce a separate page for Alexa for Business apps, similar to the Alexa Skills page it already has for consumer apps, according to CNBC’s sources.
And that set of announcements could be coming quite soon — Alexa is the subject of a number of breakout sessions scheduled for later today.
The names of these sessions have not yet been broadly disclosed, but CNBC managed to get ahold of a list of them:
“Bring your Alexa to work. Voice-enable your company.”
“Building smart conference rooms with Alexa.”
“New skills for Alexa for Business.”
“Hack your office: Building the skills that help you at work.”
Amazon’s push for enterprise makes it unique among its competitors at Google, Apple and Microsoft — as none of them have attempted to bridge their products out to professional applications.
But earlier this year, Amazon and Microsoft did say they would let Alexa and Cortana start working together — maybe they can be co-workers.
Amazon has not commented on this development as of yet.