Tech
Alexa can now answer questions about data without invoking any skill names
The new Knowledge Skills are targeted at business and hospitality users.
Alexa has never been the greatest conversationalist — but she’s about to improve. The platform’s latest update adds Alexa Knowledge Skills, which allow Alexa to answer questions about a variety of data without invoking skill or organization names. These skills are made for Alexa for Business and Alexa for Hospitality developers.
No coding required — Amazon wants Alexa to continue being user-friendly, even when its skill set becomes more complex. So Knowledge Skills are built to be just that: simple to set up.
From the Alexa developer portal, users can access the “Knowledge” skill type, which uses pre-formatted spreadsheets to create readable data.
Four key benefits — In its announcement blog post, the Alexa team says there are four main reasons Knowledge Skills will be beneficial to users: data can be updated in bulk using spreadsheets, the skills can understand flexible questions, no coding knowledge is needed, and skills can be used without having to remember the name of the skill.
Effort into expansion — Most full-fledged Alexa updates are consumer-focused, so it’s a nice change of pace for Amazon to be putting development time into its less-used Alexa sectors — especially because the development actually makes their product easier to use.
Alexa Knowledge Skills are only available for developer preview at the moment; no word yet on a full release date.
