To that end, the technology giant on Wednesday is rolling out dozens of new features for developers to help them create more engaging and ambient Alexa skills. A number of those features encourage the developer ecosystem to grow by allowing builders to monetize their Alexa skills. “We’re seeing early and encouraging signs of developers actually making money with skills,” Fresko said. “We’ve seen some developers make more than $1 million a year.” Developers have built more than 130,000 skills for the voice assistant, as well as hundreds of “Alexa built-in” products (including PCs, wearables, smart home devices, and cars). There are more than 140,000 smart home products that can be controlled with Alexa. With hundreds of millions of Alexa-enabled devices now in use, customers interact with Alexa billions of times every week. “Our vision for ambient computing is technology that’s always available across modalities,” Fresko said. “It’s where you need it and doesn’t get in the way… And it also adapts to you instead of customers needing to adapt to it. You don’t have to learn it – it’s proactive, and it learns from you. And this is technology meeting you where you are.”
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Interactive Media Skill Components: These components will shorten the time it takes for radio, podcast, and music providers to launch interactive experiences on Alexa. With the Song Request Skill Component, radio DJs can take song requests and dedications from listeners via Alexa. iHeartRadio will support this feature. Multiplayer Games on Alexa: Developers will be able to use the Shared Activities API to build asynchronous multiplayer challenges to make sharing games with friends possible. Send to Phone: Customers will be able to start an experience on their Alexa-enabled device and continue it on their mobile device. More Proactive Experiences: Using Event-Based Triggers and Proactive Suggestions, developers can build proactive experiences for customers. For example, if a customer is leaving for work, customers could opt-in to have a skill proactively suggest that they lock their home. Alexa Guard: Customers in the US will be able to connect to smart safety devices such as smoke, carbon monoxide, and water leak detectors, and Alexa Guard can send a mobile notification if these smart safety devices detect an incident.
