Tag: Alexa

Ecobee’s New Thermostat Comes With Alexa Integration

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Alexa continues to infiltrate the smart home space as it becomes the go-to choice of voice assistant integration for many IoT device makers. Today, smart home device manufacturer Ecobee debuted a smart thermostat Ecobee4 that essentially doubles as a wall-mounted Echo Dot. Besides allowing users to control the room temperature via voice command, it also enables users to access over 10,000 third-party skills. In addition, Ecobee will also be integrating Alexa into a smart light switch coming later this year.

What Brands Need To Do
Connected home devices are estimated to ship over 1.8 billion units by 2019. As the availability of smart home devices rapidly grows, they emerge as a valuable platform for brands to reach consumers at home. As Amazon and the developer community continue to build out Alexa’s capabilities and make it more brand-friendly, brands would be smart to get on board with those devices via integrations or branded skills.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience in building Alexa Skills and chatbots to reach consumers on conversational interfaces. So much so that we’ve built a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The “Miller Time” Alexa Skill we developed with Drizly for Miller Lite is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational customer experience, supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, or to leverage the Lab’s expertise to take on related client opportunities within the IPG Mediabrands, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Barrett ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: The Verge

Header image courtesy of Ecobee

This New Medical Wearable Comes With Alexa And Uber Integrations

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Wearable devices dedicated to healthcare and medical purposes are nothing new, but a new wearable device for senior healthcare, created by startup Elements of Genius and backed by Mission Pharmacal, will be the first to integrate with Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa. For their upcoming flagship product Wellnest, the company will allow users to use Alexa to conveniently place refill orders for their prescriptions. Moreover, the device will also be integrated with Uber so that senior citizens can easily request a ride or an UberRush to assist with medication delivery.

What Brands Need To Do
By integrating with Alexa, this wearable device not only gains a valuable ecommerce feature that provides real convenience for users, it also opens the door for future expansion of digital voice assistants as caretaking assistants on wearables. With over 11 million Amazon Echo devices sold since launch, Alexa is entering millions of home and leading the charge in familiarizing mainstream consumers with smart voice assistants and the unique conversational experiences they enable. Therefore, brands seeking to stay ahead of the adoption curve will need to start thinking about how to leverage the rise of voice assistants to better serve their customers.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience in building Alexa Skills and chatbots to reach consumers on conversational interfaces. So much so that we’ve built a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The “Miller Time” Alexa Skill we developed with Drizly for Miller Lite is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational customer experience, supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, or to leverage the Lab’s expertise to take on related client opportunities within the IPG Mediabrands, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Barrett ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: Yahoo Finance (press release)

Images courtesy of Mission Pharmacal’s press release

 

Amazon Updates Alexa Developer Policy To Ban Ads In Most Third-Party Skills

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon has updated its developer policy to explicitly prohibit marketing messages in most third-party “skills” for its voice assistant Alexa. The updated policy now simply bans skills that contain “any advertising for third-party products or services.” Exceptions are made for music streaming, radio, and news briefing skills, which can continue to carry sponsor messages or audio ad breaks, but otherwise Amazon is banning ads on the Alexa platform.

What Brands Need To Do
With this policy update, it is clear that Amazon intends to impose a tight control over the marketing messages delivered via Alexa. The timing suggests this could be a response to the recent incident where Burger King released ads intentionally crafted to trigger Google Home. This means brands will no longer be able to sponsor a popular skill, other than the three exempted categories, to reach Alexa users. Instead, brands interesting in exploring voice-activated smart home devices as a marketing channel should reorient their strategy towards building branded skills that can provide users with functional values and engaging conversational experiences.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience in building Alexa Skills and chatbots to reach consumers on conversational interfaces. So much so that we’ve built a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The “Miller Time” Alexa Skill we developed with Drizly for Miller Lite is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational customer experience, supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, or to leverage the Lab’s expertise to take on related client opportunities within the IPG Mediabrands, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Barrett ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

Source: TechCrunch

Mercedes-Benz Lets Drivers Choose Between Alexa And Google Assistant

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Alexa and Google Assistant will be duking it out on Mercedes-Benz vehicles, as the German automaker announced on Friday it will be integrating both voice assistants into all of its 2016 and 2017 models in the U.S. Starting today, Mercedes owners can instruct their Google Home or Amazon Echo to remotely start or lock their vehicles, as well as send addresses to their in-car navigation system. Users will need to have an active “Mercedes me” account and link it up to the Google Home or Amazon Alexa app for the integration to work.

What Brands Need To Do
Mercedes is not the only auto brand that are giving consumer options to choose when it comes to digital voice assistants. Hyundai, who just added support for Google Assistant last week, was the first auto brand to roll out Alexa integrations back in November. As more auto brands start actively pursuing the potential of in-car conversational interfaces, more and more consumers will become addressable via these voice assistants, and brands will need to seize the initiative to navigate the emerging opportunities and challenges of shifting from a screen-based interaction to a voice experience.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience in building Alexa Skills and chatbots to reach consumers on conversational interfaces. So much so that we’ve built a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The “Miller Time” Alexa Skill we developed with Drizly for Miller Lite is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational customer experience, supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, or to leverage the Lab’s expertise to take on related client opportunities within the IPG Mediabrands, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Barrett ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

 

Source: Engadget

Amazon Lends Alexa’s 7-Mic Voice Processing Tech To Hardware Makers

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon continues to expand Alexa’s footprint by opening up its far-field microphone and voice processing technology to third-party manufacturers to integrate into their own voice-activated devices. The new development kit also includes access to Amazon’s proprietary software for wake word recognition, beamforming, noise reduction, and echo cancellation as well as reference client software for local device control and communication with the Alexa Voice Service. Right now this development kit is by invitation only, which hardware makers can apply for one here.

What Brands Need To Do
With Alexa Voice Services, Amazon is already encouraging other companies to build the Alexa into their own products. Now with this new developer tool, device makers will have an easier and less expensive way to incorporate Amazon’s voice recognition tech into more voice-activated connected devices, potentially expanding Alexa’s reach even further.

A new CIRP report estimates that there are now 8.2 million customers who own an Amazon Echo device, up 60% from the 5.1 million Echo users that CIRP cited in November 2016, making it one of the fastest growing connected home devices in the past few years. Led by Alexa, voice-activated devices are poised to change the way many customers search for information and interact with businesses. Brands seeking to stay ahead of the curve will need to start developing a conversational strategy to figure out an authentic way to establish a brand presence on the conversational devices.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience in building Alexa Skills to reach consumers on conversational interfaces. So much so that we’ve built a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The “Miller Time” Alexa Skill we developed with Drizly for Miller Lite is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational customer experience, supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, or to leverage the Lab’s expertise to take on related client opportunities within the IPG Mediabrands, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Barrett ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: The Verge

Now You Can Ask Alexa To Send You A Plumber Thanks To HomeAdvisor

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Home service-booking site HomeAdvisor has launched an Alexa skill to allow Echo users to book a home service professional without lifting a finger. Once a homeowner activates the skill, Alexa will ask for the user’s zip code and phone number. Then HomeAdvisor will match the homeowner up with a home service professional in the local area to give the homeowner a call to confirm a booking. Users can also use the skill to find help for their home improvement or even landscaping projects.

What Brands Need To Do
It is interesting to see that HomeAdvisor beat Amazon to the punch with this Alexa skill, considering the ecommerce giant has launched their own online home service marketplace Home Services last year, which Amazon has yet to integrate with Alexa. As evidenced by Alexa’s dominance at this year’s CES, Amazon’s voice assistant has an early lead in becoming the interface of many a voice-activated home device, making it a valuable platform for brands seeking to reach consumers at home. This HomeAdvisor is but one of the latest addition to Alexa’s growing capabilities, which is ushering in a new type of audio-based discovery and engagement that brands need to adapt to.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience in building Alexa Skills and chatbots to reach consumers on conversational interfaces. So much so that we’ve built a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The “Miller Time” Alexa Skill we developed with Drizly for Miller Lite is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational customer experience, supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, or to leverage the Lab’s expertise to take on related client opportunities within the IPG Mediabrands, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Barrett ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: GeekWire

Alexa Users Can Now Activate New Skills Just By Asking

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon is making it even easier for Alexa users to discover and activate new skills, which is Amazon’s way of calling voice-only app for its voice assistant made by third-party developers. Amazon has added a functionality to catch failed launch intents of non-enabled skills and allow users to invoke skills that haven’t been enabled by saying valid invocation utterances. This means Alexa-users will no longer need to pre-enable skills before using them. 

Previously, users have to enable a skill via the Alexa app on their mobile devices before they can use it on Alexa. Those who failed to do will be greeted with an error message and a prompt designed to teach the customer how to enable the skill.

This addition also offers a certain level of flexibility by allowing utterances similar to the rigid invocation pattern to result in skill enablement. For example, users can say either “Open up the Jeopardy game,” “Start up Jeopardy,” or “Launch the Jeopardy skill,” all of which will launch the Jeopardy skill for them even if it has not been enabled before.

What Brands Need To Do
This is a small yet significant update for the Alexa Voice Service, which allows third-party skills to be invoked without prior enablement. This not only makes for a smoother user experience but also removes a lot of the frictions in getting Alexa users to try out the skills made by brands. Now, marketing campaigns can feature skill utterances that work for customers whether or not they’ve enabled a skill allowing for easier discovery and repeated use.

According to a report from analytics firm VoiceLabs, about 33 million voice-first devices will be in circulation by the end of 2017. Therefore, It is up to brands to start working with developers to figure out their brand voice and incorporate conversational tools into their marketing efforts.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience in building Alexa Skills and chatbots to reach consumers on conversational interfaces. So much so that we’ve built a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The “Miller Time” Alexa Skill we developed for Miller Lite is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational customer experience, supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, or to leverage the Lab’s expertise to take on related client opportunities within the IPG Mediabrands, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: CNET

Alexa Developers Can Now Customize Skills Based On User Locations

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
The location API for Alexa skills has officially come out of beta, Amazon announced in a company blog post. This API enables developers to access user locations and use that information to customize the conversational experiences they make, such as food delivery or finding the nearest drugstore. Previously, companies like AccuWeather and Just Eat have been testing this API. It is worth noting that this API is not a location tracker like GPS, but rather allows developers to access the address of the device owner according to their Amazon profile.

In addition, Amazon also launched a new metrics dashboard, which lets Alexa developers track things like unique customers, sessions, utterances and intents so that they can track the performance of their skills in one place.

What Brands Need To Do
As Amazon continues to build out Alexa’s capabilities and improve its measurement tools, brands will have an easier time to design their conversational brand experiences and track their performances in one place. Opening access to user addresses removes friction for delivery-oriented services and allows developers to deliver a more localized user experience. According to a report from analytics firm VoiceLabs, about 33 million voice-first devices will be in circulation by the end of 2017. Therefore, It is up to brands to start working with developers to figure out their brand voice and incorporate conversational tools into their marketing efforts. For more on this, check out the Advanced Interfaces section in our brand new Outlook 2017 trend report.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience in building Alexa Skills and chatbots to reach consumers on conversational interfaces. So much so that we’ve built a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The “Miller Time” Alexa Skill we developed is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational customer experience, supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, or to leverage the Lab’s expertise to take on related client opportunities within the IPG Mediabrands, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Barrett ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: VentureBeat

Amazon Extends Alexa Voice Shopping To Include Prime Now Deliveries

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon Prime members can ask Alexa to get their groceries delivered within hours, thanks to the latest expansion of the voice assistant’s shopping capabilities. By integrating Prime Now programs into Alexa, Amazon is pushing the envelope on Alexa’s ecommerce capabilities and make it more deeply ingrained in Prime members’ daily lives. Beyond grocery products, Alexa can also order fast deliveries for smaller items such as video games from local stores. Some cities, such as Seattle, Columbus, and Cincinnati, will even get booze delivery via Alexa.

What Brands Need To Do
As Amazon continues to improve Alexa’s capabilities and integrate it with existing services, users will likely get more comfortable with voice shopping, thus presenting a new dilemma for brands in reaching customers via a voice-based conversational interface like Alexa. Short of partnering with Amazon to put your products atop the voice search results, which Amazon has yet to start doing, a good solution is for brands to develop their own Alexa skills. For example, beer giant Anheuser-Busch recently launched an Alexa skill that guides users through various workout routines designed to burn off the calories of a beer, which is a cool way to establish a brand presence on Alexa devices while providing extra value to customers.

According to a report from analytics firm VoiceLabs, about 33 million voice-first devices will be in circulation by the end of 2017. Therefore, It is up to brands to start working with developers to figure out their brand voice and incorporate conversational tools into their marketing efforts.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience in building Alexa Skills and chatbots to reach consumers on conversational interfaces. So much so that we’ve built a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The “Miller Time” Alexa Skill we developed is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational customer experience, supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, or to leverage the Lab’s expertise to take on related client opportunities within the IPG Mediabrands, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: VentureBeat

 

Amazon Brings Alexa To iOS Via Main App Integration

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon has integrated Alexa into the iOS version of its main app, allowing iPhone and iPad users to interact with the popular voice assistant right on their mobile devices. IOS users can tap a microphone icon in the Amazon app to use Alexa to shop on Amazon.com by voice, play music and audiobooks, asking Alexa questions, checking the news, and accessing the 10,000 and counting Alexa skills, including the one we made for getting Miller Lite delivered to your door using Drizzly.

The move by Amazon makes Alexa available for a much wider audience who might not have Amazon Echo or Fire devices, expanding the reach and introduce more users to its ecosystem of Alexa-powered services and hardware products.This would help Amazon further conquer the digital assistant market and, in turn, give Amazon more conversational data to improve Alexa.

What Brands Need To Do
For brands, the expanded reach should make Alexa a more attractive platform to develop voice-based conversational experiences for. Earlier this week, Amazon announced it is applying promotional credits for developers that use Amazon Web Services for hosting Alexa skills, making it free for brands to build and host their Alexa skills.

According to a report from analytics firm VoiceLabs, about 33 million voice-first devices will be in circulation by the end of 2017. Therefore, It is up to brands to start working with developers to figure out their brand voice and incorporate conversational tools into their marketing efforts.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience in building Alexa Skills and chatbots to reach consumers on conversational interfaces. So much so that we’ve built a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The “Miller Time” Alexa Skill we developed is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational customer experience, supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, or to leverage the Lab’s expertise to take on related client opportunities within the IPG Mediabrands, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

Source: Ars Technica
Header image is a promotional image courtesy of Amazon