Amazon is letting companies trap Alexa in office equipment

Alexa for Business launched last fall, giving companies the opportunity to use Alexa as a superefficient office assistant. At launch, an Amazon Echo could be paired with existing office equipment, but according to Amazon, many organizations say they'd prefer Alexa to be built directly into existing devices, to reduce the amount of technology that needs to be managed. So that's what Amazon has done.

Today, the company has announced that it's opening up the platform to device makers that are making their own solutions that have Alexa built in. So third party creators building with the Alexa Voice Service (AVS) can register their products with Alexa for Business, and they can be managed as shared devices in organizations.

It's still early days for Alexa for Business. Voice-controlled devices such as the Echo are predominantly used for consumer-orientated functions, but if Amazon can tap into a business market it'll have a major impact on the voice assistant industry. Others will rush to join in, but Amazon will certainly capitalize on being there first.