Amazon to team up with Apple, Google for Alexa voice assistant

The retailer has 5,000 people working on Echo home speakers and the Alexa platform that powers the devices

Spencer Soper & Emily Chang | Bloomberg 

Amazon to team up with Apple, Google for Alexa voice assistant

is willing to team up with competitors and Alphabet’s if it would help improve customers’ experience with its Alexa voice-activated virtual assistant, an executive working on the platform said.

The online retailer, which is already working with Microsoft on productivity features for Alexa such as calendar interactions, will put the user first in pursuit of any other partnerships, said Toni Reid, Amazon’s vice president of Alexa and Echo devices, who has been on the team since 2014.

“We are super passionate about the customer approach,” Reid said Wednesday in a taped interview with Bloomberg TV’s Emily Chang.

The Seattle-based retailer has 5,000 people working on Echo home speakers and the Alexa platform that powers the devices, Reid said. sees uses for voice-activated devices in every room of the home, as well as in cars and hotels, she said.

Amazon’s rivals already have competing products: is set to roll-out its own HomePod smart speaker with Siri, its digital assistant, later this year, and Google’s range of Home devices come equipped with the internet giant’s virtual helper.

First Published: Fri, October 13 2017. 01:18 IST