Amazon could be working on a brand new feature that could allow Alexa to recognize voices. Yup, the voice powered AI could start recognizing when it is little Tim asking it to order 100 boxes of Pizza from Dominoes.
According to Time, which cites an anonymous source connected with Amazon, the company is working on a feature called VoiceID. The feature has been under development since the summer of last year and could soon make an appearance.
The benefits of such a system being released to the public would of course be immense. Not only could specific features be tied to specific voices, but the feature could also allow guardians to review what others at home have been chatting with Alexa about. It could also enable Alexa to offer more customized service to users depending upon their identity.
From a business perspective, it would allow Amazon to differentiate Alexa from competitors and offer services that they don’t. For instance, when someone says read me the news of the day, Alexa could be keyed to source its news from some specific source, which could change depending upon who asked for news. The voice assistant could also offer custom recommendations based on past results.
Another use case scenario is asking Alexa to remind you of something the next time it hears your voice.
The feature could well give Alexa an edge over competitors. As things stand now, Alexa and Google Assistant are competing neck to neck with Cortana and Siri following close behind. At the ongoing MWC event, while Google’s Assistant saw a wider roll out, Alexa also made a debut on phones outside the Amazon ecosystem when Motorola announced that its Moto Mods smartphones will work in conjunction with Amazon’s voice assistant.
Meanwhile, voice recognition does seem like the next logical step for a home assistant. If Amazon is developing it, it only seems fair to assume that other companies are working on it too. Let’s see which of them manages to win this race.
