Commentary

Amazon Creates Tech Alliance For Voice Assistant Compatibility

Amazon, BMW, Microsoft, Baidu and other companies are joining together to ensure that voice-enabled products can work together.

The stated priorities of the “Voice Interoperability Initiative” include releasing technologies and solutions that make it easier to integrate multiple voice services on a single product and accelerate machine learning and conversational artificial intelligence research to improve the quality and interoperability of voice services.

Conspicuously absent from the initiative are Google, Apple and Samsung, all major players with their own voice assistants.

The Amazon-led initiative is built around the idea that voice services should work with each other seamlessly on a single device. It also intends to develop technologies for voice-enabled products supporting multiple simultaneous wake words.

“Multiple simultaneous wake words provide the best option for customers,” stated Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. “Utterance by utterance, customers can choose which voice service will best support a particular interaction.”

Other companies participating in the initiative include Bose, Cerence, ecobee, Harman, Logitech, Salesforce, Sonos, Sound United, Sony Audio Group, Spotify, Tencent,  Free, Orange, SFR, Verizon, Amlogic, InnoMedia, Intel, MediaTek, NXP Semiconductors, Qualcomm, SGW Global, Tonly, CommScope, DiscVision, Libre, Linkplay, MyBox, Sagemcom, StreamUnlimited and Sugr.

The alliance may be good for Amazon -- but for Google, Apple and Samsung, not so much.

2 comments about "Amazon Creates Tech Alliance For Voice Assistant Compatibility".
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  1. R MARK REASBECK from www.USAonly.US , September 26, 2019 at 9:59 p.m.

    Alliance For Voice Assistant Compatibility,


    This is nothing new, My mom had this when she called us in for dinner every night.

  2. John Grono from GAP Research replied, September 27, 2019 at 5:12 p.m.

    Pure gold.   Gave me a chuckle.

    Didn't Downton Abbey have the forerunner with the butler bells?

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About the Author

Chuck Martin is Editor of the AI & IoT Daily at MediaPost and writes the daily Connected Thinking column. He is a NY Times Business bestselling author and his latest book is “Digital Transformation 3.0” (The New Business-to-Consumer Connections of The Internet of Things.) He is CEO of Net Future Institute and a frequent keynote speaker internationally. Follow him on Twitter @chuckmartin and contact him at Chuck@MediaPost.com.