Amazon voice assistant gets gen AI boost with Explore with Alexa for kids

Voice assistants have become extremely popular in recent years. No more is there a need to get up, turn your music system on, browse a song on your phone and play it. Instead, just ask Alexa to do it. Amazon’s voice assistant is quite useful when it comes to tasks such as playing music, solving queries and even entertaining kids. It can even control smart home devices such as your TV, lights, AC, washing machine, and more. If your kid has become restless, simply ask Alexa to play a rhyme to tell a story, and it’ll keep them engaged for long periods while you get your work done.

Now, Alexa is getting the generative artificial intelligence (AI) upgrade, Amazon has announced. Know all about it.

Explore with Alexa

According to Amazon, the new generative AI experience, called Explore with Alexa, harnesses the power of AI to entertain kids and solve all their queries. For example, when kids ask Alexa “What are orcas?”, instead of providing the definition of the killer whale, the voice assistant will give a kid-friendly description such as “Orca whales have long, sleek bodies that travel through the ocean kind of like a submarine. These animals can travel up to 35 miles per hour. This helps them to hunt and capture fish, seals, and other sea life! Do you want to keep exploring?”

Amazon has said that its Alexa Kids science and engineering team has developed the Explore with Alexa feature with a protected version of Amazon’s large language model (LLM). It can direct kids away from sensitive and inappropriate content.

The new generative AI experience will answer kids’ queries from trusted sources such as the World Wildlife Fund and A-Z Animals. It will also encourage them to keep exploring a topic to expand their curiosity. Using gen AI, the Explore with Alexa feature is capable of generating tens of thousands of potential responses and involving expert kids writers in a review process.

The Explore with Alexa feature is being rolled out with the Amazon Kids+ service and will be available for use before the holiday season.

Alanna Nielsen, director of Amazon Kids said, “Explore with Alexa will help make our trusted library of kids content bigger and better, developing more kid-friendly responses to encourage kids to learn and explore, and always with trust and safety at the forefront.”