Amazon is putting Alexa in the office

At the AWS reinvent conference, Amazon announced Alexa for Business.

The new platform will let companies build out their own skills and integrations for both practical and business use cases.

The first focus for Alexa for Business is conference room.

Just as developers can build skills for Amazon Echo users, businesses can now build out Alexa skills for use within their own company.

You could imagine voice access to an employee directory, Salesforce data on various clients and accounts, or company calendar information.

Alexa for Business is a two-sided project for Amazon.

On the one hand, Amazon gets added data and revenue from larger-scale customers and, on the other, enterprise businesses will likely hop on the platform to build APIs and skills for a new breed of customer.

But the first challenge is getting large companies to invest in a huge quantity of Echo devices.

Given the shift toward voice interfaces, it’s likely not a question of if, but when.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/30/16720138/amazon-alexa-business-announcement