How Amazon Is Looking To Make Alexa A Workplace Assistant

Amazon‘s (NASDAQ:AMZN) smart speaker Echo reached a sales milestone last year, as it exceeded 5 million devices in the U.S. since its debut two years prior. The company’s virtual assistant Alexa is built into its Echo speakers, which allows users to control their connected smart devices using voice commands. The voice assistant also provides other information, including news and weather conditions. Alexa is becoming increasingly popular, and the company is focusing on several initiatives such as a cheaper version of the Echo (Echo Dot) and integration with more smart home devices to increase sales. According to a study by the NPD Group’s Checkout Tracking service (as reported by TechCrunch), Echo owners spent around 10% more on Amazon after they bought the smart speaker, justifying Amazon’s focus on the device.

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However, it appears that Amazon is now working on making Echo a key component of the workplace. The company recently announced that its connected speakers and other Alexa-powered devices will work with Office 365 calendars. Through this integration, consumers will be able to use voice commands to control their work calendars – for example, adding meetings and seeking information about upcoming appointments. The company is testing several ways in which Alexa can be used to automate mundane daily work tasks into a few voice commands. For instance, it is looking to collaborate with Salesforce and FinancialForce, which would make it easy for a user to interact with complex business software using voice commands. Amazon is working on ways in which Alexa can make the workflow more efficient and improve the speed of decision making.

Amazon already has a strong corporate client base which uses its cloud network. The company recently launched business communication software Chime, which indicates that it has ambitions to penetrate deeper into the corporate segment. Amazon’s Echo, and the Alexa voice assistant in particularly, are extremely popular with retail customers and Echo is also driving sales in the company’s e-commerce segment. The company is slowly working on making Alexa a virtual office assistant and, if executed well, we believe this foray holds strong revenue potential for Amazon in the long term.

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