- Google and Amazon are two of the biggest technology giants offering smart home devices in India
- The company said that Alexa is equipped with a rich Hindi vocabulary and speaks in fluent Hindi while responding to customer requests
Amazon has announced that Alexa will now support interactions in Hindi or Hinglish in India. Alexa is the AI brain that powers Amazon Echo devices. The new Hindi experience, as per Amazon, is available on all Echo family of voice-controlled smart speakers.
“India has uniquely challenged our AI teams with its cultural and linguistic diversity. We are thrilled to bring a suite of AI advances in multilingual understanding so that customers can interact with Alexa in different regional variants of colloquial Hindi. We are also grateful to Indian customers who contributed to Hindi development through the Cleo skill,” said Rohit Prasad, VP and head scientist, Alexa AI, Amazon.
It is to be noted here that Google and Amazon are two of the biggest technology giants offering smart home devices in India. While Amazon retails smart speakers and interactive screens under Echo brand, Google retails smart home devices under Google Home brand name. A report by International Data Corporation (IDC) revealed that smart home devices accounted for 1.4 million shipments in the second quarter of 2018.
Available on Echo devices
Amazon said that this Hindi support is available on its entire range of Echo devices in India. Company’s home devices range includes of Echo Dot, Echo Show 5, Echo, Echo Spot, Echo Plus, Echo Show and Echo Input.
Company’s official statement read, “To get started with Hindi, customers can just ask, “Alexa, help me set up Hindi.” Existing Echo customers in India can change their device language to Hindi via the Language options inside the Device settings on the Alexa App. Echo Show users can access the settings section to change language by swiping down from the top of the screen.”
Puneesh Kumar, country manager for Alexa Experiences and Devices, Amazon India. “Conversations in Hinglish are common. With today’s launch you will notice that Alexa has become more local. Alexa will not only understand and respond in Hindi or Hinglish but, is also armed with a lot of knowledge about topics that interest users in the country ranging from local information, to music, and from Bollywood to cricket.”
