Amazon’s voice assistant is now available for Windows 10 users on laptop and PCs across the world. This announcement was made by Microsoft and Amazon at the Build 2019 developer conference on Monday.
Amazon Alexa is already available on a slew of devices like speakers, headphone and even smartphones. But, targeting PCs is a new strategy for the Jeff Bezos-owned company, which has been populating its voice assistant wherever possible.
The news of Alexa support on Windows 10 was first announced at last year’s Build conference, and it has taken both the companies one year to reach the end consumer with the support.
Microsoft has claimed it has over 800 million devices running on Windows 10 as of now, and even if Amazon gets half of those users to sign up for Alexa, it’s a win-win for both the parties.
Alexa has managed to pick up higher traction on devices other than smartphones, which makes it the go-to voice assistant for house owners. Not exactly sure how PCs would benefit from using it, and why Microsoft would want a competing voice assistant on its platform, when it already has Cortana.
How to Get Alexa on Windows 10
- Head over to Windows Store
- Search for Alexa app on Windows Store
- Download the app and sign in with Amazon ID
- Start using Alexa hands-free to ask queries, play music and more
During our experience with Alexa on a Windows 10 laptop, we noticed that the assistant picks up your command with high accuracy.
The hands-free mode (by clicking on the Blue Alexa button), allows you to search for stuff, make it play music (from your registered Amazon Music account) and we expect more to be available in the coming months.
Amazon or Microsoft haven’t clarified what they do with the voice data recorded, but it is likely that the data is being sent back to Amazon’s server in order to get the appropriate response. Nevertheless, this is an interesting partnership and one worth keeping an eye on.
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