Alexa

Alexa is Amazon's voice AI, an interactive voice assistant with a range of functionality that is available on many Amazon devices. Alexa responds to user commands, and through connections to other devices, it can control a range of smart home functionality. Alexa is the result of the Alexa Voice Service (AVS), a cloud-based intelligent voice recognition and natural language understanding service capable of mimicking real conversations through intuitive voice commands. "Alexa" acts as the wake word for devices to start listening to the user's voice. It is possible to change the wake word to “Amazon,” “Computer,” “Echo,” or other variations. Alexa adapts to the user's voice, vocabulary, and personal preferences, improving its performance with more interactions. The voice assistant can be found on most Amazon products and services, including the original Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Spot, Echo Show, or Amazon Fire TV.

On January 24, 2013, Amazon announced it was acquiring Ivona Software, a Polish-based company that specializes in voice technologies. Alexa was announced alongside the Amazon Echo device on November 6, 2014. In June 2015, Amazon introduced the Alexa Fund with $100 million to invest in developers, manufacturers, and start-ups fueling voice technology innovation. To further invigorate the voice technology and conversational AI ecosystem, Amazon introduced the Alexa Prize in September 2016. An annual university competition dedicated to accelerating the field of conversational artificial intelligence (AI), the Alexa Prize offers a $2.5 million prize pool at launch. In December 2020, Amazon announced Alexa could now perform real-time translation. At launch, the feature works with six language pairs — English and Spanish, French, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, or Hindi. In September 2023, Amazon previewed new generative AI features for Alexa.