Amazon just announced some big changes coming to Alexa: a new, more natural-sounding voice; support for simultaneous, bilingual requests; a new “frustration mode”; celebrity guest voices — starting with none other than Samuel L. Jackson — and more.
The new voice is based on neural text-to-speech software that relies on deep learning techniques to make Alexa sound more like a real human being (the same approach that Apple took with
Siri’s new voice earlier this year on iOS 13).
That neural text-to-speech mode also allows Amazon to mimic real human voices, like celebrities, which Amazon will be offering as alternative Alexa voices this year,
starting with Samuel L. Jackson. And thanks to the new tech, unlike other celebrity voice integrations on Alexa, the new version isn’t relying on prerecorded phases. Amazon will offer both explicit and clean versions of Jackson’s voice, and launch later this year for a “special price” of $0.99 for anyone who purchases it in 2019 (after which it’ll cost $4.99). Amazon is also promising that more celebrities will arrive next year, too.
