After “Avengers” star Samuel L. Jackson, Amazon now brings us Amitabh Bachchan on Alexa, Amazon’s own virtual assistant.
Yes, you read that right, the Big B will be the first Indian celebrity whose voice will be available on Amazon’s Alexa from today as the US-based e-commerce powerhouse continues to invest in the world’s second-largest internet market. This feature is exclusive to India.
Amitabh Bachchan needs no introduction to cinephiles and commoners alike, and the latest development is sure to be a success.
This comes soon after Amazon had ventured into the realm of wealth management with the investment made through its $250 million venture fund.
If you, like me, want to hear the voice of the Bollywood star on your Echo device or the Amazon Shopping app, all you have to do is say, “Alexa, introduce me to Amitabh Bachchan” and purchase the voice pack for a starting price of ₹149 for one year.
Once the payment is confirmed, you will be able to start interacting with him by simply saying the wake command “Amit Ji.” This is your chance to have a one-on-one conversation with the Bollywood legend, so what are you waiting for?
That is not all, as the voice pack will also include exclusive content that was selected by Amitabh himself, including stories from his life, motivational quotes, a selection of poems from his father, tongue twisters, and more. You can also ask to play music, set alarms, and get weather updates among other features, and you will recieve them all in the Big B’s signature style. Want to hear some quotes from his most successful movies? That is available too.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about this feature is that neural speech technology will be applied to make Alexa sound more like one of the most successful Bollywood stars. Amitabh himself is pleased with this feature, saying that working with Amazon to introduce his voice on Alexa was a new experience in bringing together the magic of voice technology and artistic creativity. “I am excited that my well-wishers can now interact with me via this new medium, and looking forward to hear how they feel about this,” he said in a statement.
“At Amazon & Alexa, we consistently innovate on behalf of our customers and building the Amitabh Bachchan celebrity voice experience with one of India’s most iconic voices has been a labor of love. Creating the world’s first bi-lingual celebrity voice required us to invent & re-invent across almost every element of speech science – wake word, speech recognition, neural text-to-speech and more,” said Puneesh Kumar, Country Leader for Alexa, Amazon India, in a statement.
“While we are proud of the many India-first innovations and desi-delighters in this, it’s still Day 1 and we will continue to enrich this experience as science evolves.”
If you’re worried about the linguistic barrier, Amazon has that under control. Amitabh Bachchan’s voice will be available in both English and Hindi, and you can change the language anytime by going to the device settings on the Alexa app or saying “Alexa, speak in Hindi” to the Echo device.
