Amazon is constantly looking for ways to expand Alexa’s reach. Ina Fried at Axios is reporting that Amazon is getting into the business sector with Alexa for Business. It be aimed at a range of settings, from small businesses to large ones, including hotels and co-working spaces.
In an interview, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels told Axios that Alexa “will greatly improve by being exposed to different kinds of statements or conversations.” This move makes sense because the conversations that happen in-office are different from the conversations we have at home. By exposing Alexa to different types of environments, it will help broaden the virtual assistant’s skills and responses.
Amazon has already started on Alexa for Business. The challenges the company is facing include finding ways for Alexa to integrate with enterprise software, and providing a framework for businesses to write custom skills for the virtual assistant.
Apart from Alexa, businesses can use Microsoft’s virtual assistant Cortana. At this time, it’s unclear how these moves will affect Amazon’s partnership with Microsoft. Previously, the two agreed to work together for both Alexa Dan Cortana to communicate with one another by the end of 2017. While we know this, we haven’t received any updates for a while regarding this partnership.
