American giant technology company Amazon has revealed its Alexa Custom Assistance system which is soon expected to be a mainstream connectivity feature in the Indian car market. Alexa Custom Assistance is AI-based voice assistance which has all the capabilities including that of the regular Alexa voice assistance and with more unique features which will allow carmakers to configure the system to accept brand-specific voice commands.
The basic features like traffic updates, weather, local searches will be standard and Amazon claims that the Alexa Custom Assistance will have additional features where the carmakers can customise to add new voice commands which will deliver the best-in-class connectivity experience to the customers. The Alexa Custom Assistance will also have the capability to communicate with other Alexa devices outside the car. The system will be equipped with other Amazon-specific apps like Amazon Audible which opens up an audiobook and the passengers can listen to that. In fact, the system will also have a command by which the customers can ask the system to order groceries from Amazon website from inside of the car.
Currently, there are few cars in the Indian market which are equipped with Alexa support capability albeit this system is not the one which has been discussed above. This is more of an extended version of the standard Alexa which can be used inside the car via the Alexa app or Echo device which has the capability to trigger basic operations like the opening of windows, check the fuel level, cranking the engine, operating the air-conditioning and more.
Carmakers will definitely make use of the Alexa Custom Assistance system as it will allow them to introduce new innovative voice commands without actually having to develop the system from scratch. This will further help the carmakers curtail their expenses spent on the R&D in developing connectivity systems and add to that the reliability and quality of a tech company like Amazon. It is reported that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) will be the first carmaker to make use of this system in the global market and thus in India we can expect the Jeep branded models to get this system very soon.