Amazon recently announced the release of a new capability for their voice assistant for smart speakers. Alexa recently got a bad rap when the Amazon Echo voice assistant would randomly start laughing without being prompted, but a new set of DIY apps, called Alexa Blueprints, is set to make customising the way Alexa assists users more simple than ever before.
Virtual assistants in general have been criticised in the past for not being as customisable as users would like, and Alexa Blueprints is a game-changer in this regard. In essence, Alexa Blueprints are a set of DIY apps that include templates which make voice commands and replies entirely customisable to users’ personal circumstances.
More than 20 skill blueprints across a variety of categories are available for download. Upon downloading the skill blueprint, users can listen to examples and read more about how to create a new skill and how to use it, before creating a personalised version of the skill in question.
The skills that are available include templates like “Inspirations”, to use for a bit of motivation on difficult days, “Family Jokes”, which allows you to populate Alexa with your favourite jokes, ready for recitation when you need to lighten the mood, and “Birthday Trivia”, which you can fill with information about family members, to be transformed into a quiz game.
These new additions to Amazon’s virtual assistant are a meaningful step in helping the Internet of Things to understand the people that use its devices, and in growing Artificial Intelligence in general, and are sure to be lots of fun to boot.
Have a look at how to use Blueprints in the video below.