Amazon is Reportedly Working on Advanced Voice-Recognition for Alexa

According to a new report coming out of Time, it appears Amazon is internally working on a new technology to further improve the voice recognition capabilities of Alexa.

Amazon is reportedly developing a new technology which would allow it to identify and distinguish between individual voices. That means Alexa might be able to recognize whether a voice command is given by you or anyone else in your household.

Internally known as “Voice ID,” the feature has been in development since last year and is almost ready for launch, according to the person familiar with the matter who spoke with Time. The goal behind the new Voice ID technology is to prevent unauthorized access, implement a more personalized user experience for every account, and make Alexa more seamless for all family members. Once launched, the feature could be used to impose more restricted accessibility over other family members’ accounts to prevent them from making unauthorized purchases or controlling smart home appliances.

Amazon already supports multiple accounts on Alexa, but it currently requires manual action on the user’s end to switch between accounts. With “Voice ID,” Alexa would be able to identify the voice of different users, making it possible to automatically switch between accounts after recognizing the user’s voice.

The report also claims that the most of the work behind the feature has already been finished, but privacy concerns are holding back the launch of the feature. Unfortunately, the report doesn’t specify exactly when, if ever, the feature will be launched. Google is very likely working on such a technology for their own Google Assistant product, but we haven’t yet heard any details about that. Still, this news is an exciting development for fans of home assistant products, and we hope to hear more about Voice ID and similar technology from Google in the near future.

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Source: Time

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