Amazon integrates Alexa assistant in its shopping app

Amazon India on Thursday announced the launch of integration of Alexa assistant on its shopping app. The assistant is primarily aimed at helping consumers shop on the e-commerce platform through voice commands. The feature is currently limited to the Android application.

It supports English and a few Hinglish phrases for now. Amazon said it will improve the Alexa integration with more features in the future. With voice commands, users can search, add to cart, check order status, and proceed to checkout.

"It's day one and we are learning in terms of our customers will respond. And as we learn more, we will introduce more and more use cases, and you can imagine that is an area of interest, and that's what customers are telling us," Kishore Thota, Director, Customer Experience & Marketing, Amazon India told Hindustan Times.

On possibilities of a completely voice driven shopping experience, Puneesh Kumar, Country Manager for Alexa Experiences and Devices, Amazon India, explained, "We're trying to make it super convenient to have the ingress or the voice ability to interface, but then also leverage the screen to do other things that may be easier for the customer. So, we are not trying to optimize that everything should happen through voice. We want voice to be the enabler."

How to use Alexa on Amazon shopping app

Starting today, Amazon's Android users will see a mic icon on the top panel next to the shopping cart. Users can tap on the mic icon to search for products. Commands can be "Alexa, Search for Maggi", "Alexa, Where's my order." Just like the Alexa-based Echo devices, a user will see a'listening screen' with a pulsating blue bar at the bottom and a simple hint after tapping on the mic icon. Note, users will have to grant the mic on "Amazon Shopping" to record audio on your phone. The experience is a mixture of voice, type and touch for now on the app.

Step 1: Tap on the mic icon to speak/command

Step 2: Ask product to add to the cart

Step 3: "Where's my order" takes you to the Order page.

Bonus

Since it's the Alexa, users can also ask the assistant to check for the weather updates and other basic functionalities. Amazon revealed users can also ask the integrated Alexa on the shopping to play music on the go. The music player will work same as any music-streaming platform. Note the added functionality is available to only Prime users.