Amazon is already a titan in the U.S., its home country. But as a company with worldwide coverage, the only way to remain on top of the food chain is by expansion.
India is one of the most important key overseas market for the tech giant. Because of this, Amazon is increasingly pouring in money to India as its means of investment in the country.
And this time, as the company makes a push to lure in more users in the world’s second-most populated nation, it has rolled out India's first celebrity voice feature for its Alexa.
To make this happen, Amazon partners with Amitabh Bachchan, one of India's biggest celebrity.
The company said that users in India can add the Bollywood legend’s voice to their Echo devices or Amazon shopping app for an introductory price of ₹149 ($2) a year.
Besides providing his voice, the 1942-born Indian actor also give stories from his life, a selection of poems by his father and popular Indian poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan, tongue twisters, motivational quotes, and even his favorite songs.
Because Amazon is using AI to make Alexa sounds like Bachchan, Amazon users can ask Alexa to do things, and have the digital assistant answer using Bachchan's voice.
The collaboration was first announced back in 2020.
But because the 'COVID-19' coronavirus emerged as a pandemic, the project had to be delayed, as Amazon's engineers had to work remotely.
There were also additional complexions due to the wake up command.
Elsewhere, Alexa can be triggered using the word "Alexa, do this.” But in case of Bachchan, Amazon wanted to introduce a two-word wake system to Alexa. “Amit ji.”
“Working with Amazon to introduce my 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,” said Bachchan in a statement.
“With voice technology, we are building something to engage more effectively with my audience and well-wishers.”
“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,” said Puneesh Kumar, Country Leader for Alexa, Amazon India, in a statement.
“Mr Bachchan’s voice is truly memorable for any Indian who has grown-up with Bollywood. This combination delivers a perfect pitch to further delight and simplify the lives of our customers.”
"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.”
“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.”
By adding Bachchan, the Bollywood star joins Samuel L. Jackson, who was the first ever Alexa celebrity voice, introduced in 2020.
Jackson’s Alexa voice is available only in English (U.S.), and Bachchan’s Alexa voice is limited to India only.
