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Developers can use Alexa's 'long-form' speaking style to read the news
Amazon's AI-powered text to speech systems are getting better.
Alexa skills can talk to you using different voices
Do you wish Alexa would respond to your commands with different voices? You'll get your wish soon. Amazon has released a developer preview that lets Alexa skill developers use a selection of voices from Polly (Amazon's text-to-speech service). An adventure story can give each character a different voice, for instance. Creators could already 'hack' additional voices in through MP3 recordings and similar techniques, but this is decidedly more elegant.
Amazon wants Alexa to answer customer service calls
In the near future, Amazon's Alexa could be on the other end of your next call to tech support. With call centers expected to become a more than $15 billion industry in the next five years, the online retail giant has apparently identified another market that is ready for a shift in technology. According to a new report from The Information, Amazon is currently prepping a commercial version of Alexa developed specifically for fielding questions from phone calls and text messages.
