Amazon Introduces the Alexa Skills Kit-A Free SDK for Developers
Developers can now create new skills and capabilities for Alexa, the brain behind Amazon Echo
Developer preview starts today
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun. 25, 2015-- (NASDAQ: AMZN)-Alexa is the cloud-based voice service that powers Amazon Echo, a new category of device designed around your voice. Today, Amazon announced the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK), a collection of self-service APIs and tools that make it fast and easy for developers to create new voice-driven capabilities for Alexa. With a few lines of code, developers can easily integrate existing web services with Alexa or, in just a few hours, they can build entirely new experiences designed around voice. No experience with speech recognition or natural language understanding is required-Amazon does all the work to hear, understand, and process the customer's spoken request so a developer doesn't have to. The Alexa Skills Kit is free-learn more and get started with the preview at https://developer.amazon.com/ASK.
Examples of skills developers can create with the Alexa Skills Kit include:
A hobbyist developer can enable Alexa to access his or her child's school lunch menu-then, each morning simply ask, Alexa, ask Ballard Elementary School what's for lunch today and decide whether to pack a lunch for the child.
A device maker with an Internet-connected sprinkler system can integrate its sprinklers with Alexa, so a customer can say, Alexa, ask my sprinkler to water my lawn for 15 minutes.
A surf report provider can create a new skill for Alexa that lets customers ask for the latest conditions at their favorite break by saying Alexa, ask Surf Status for my local forecast.
The maker of a smart vacuum cleaner can create a skill for Alexa that lets customers control their vacuum by saying Alexa, tell the vacuum to start cleaning the living room.
A fitness service can enable Alexa to access a user's workout history, so a customer can say Alexa, ask My Fitness how many miles I have run this week.
A baseball fantasy league can make a new skill for Alexa, so managers can simply say, Alexa, ask Fantasy Baseball to change my lineup and start Felix Hernandez today.
When we launched Amazon Echo we immediately heard from developers about the innovative voice experiences they would create if they had access to an SDK, said Greg Hart, Vice President, Amazon Echo and Alexa Voice Services. Today, we're making the Alexa Skills Kit available to any developer, maker, or general hobbyist that wants to invent on behalf of customers, creating new skills and capabilities. We can't wait to see what developers are going to invent with this technology.
Creating an Alexa skill is easy and fast. Developers simply write cloud-hosted code that interacts with Alexa's cloud-based APIs to process customer requests. Alexa does the work to hear, understand, and resolve the customer's spoken request, and then maps the service call to the developer's endpoint.
The easiest way to build a skill for Alexa is to use AWS Lambda, an innovative compute service that runs a developer's code in response to triggers and automatically manages the compute resources in the AWS Cloud, so there is no need for a developer to provision or continuously run servers. Developers simply upload the code for the new Alexa skill they are creating, and AWS Lambda does the rest, executing the code in response to Alexa voice interactions and automatically managing the compute resources on the developer's behalf.
Here are a few of the developers who are using the ASK to create new skills for Alexa:
Pebblebee, a hardware company making customized Bluetooth trackers and sensors, is using ASK to enable customers to track items and check sensors using voice. Weve learned over the past few years that it's not always intuitive to use a visual app with so many features. Using voice commands simplifies the complexity for customers, said Daniel Daoura, Co-Founder and CEO of Pebblebee. We're thrilled to use the Alexa Skills Kit to integrate Alexa with Pebblebee's sensor information, so a customer can simply ask, Alexa, find my keys,' or Alexa, how warm is the baby's room?' or Alexa, is my dog nearby?'
Intuit, maker of financial software, is planning a reference implementation using Alexa to access Mint.com, the free web-based personal financial management service. The Alexa Skills Kit allows us to begin experimenting on our vision for voice user interfaces, said Wolf Paulus, Staff Software Engineer at Intuit. Since Alexa is cloud-based, as soon as a prompt is spoken, the service could respond with the most up-to-date information, allowing us to quickly provide our customers with updates that are useful to them, like what is my account balance' or how long until I reach my savings goal?'. We look forward to experimenting with new ways for our customers to access their data.
StubHub, an online marketplace for sports, concert, theater, and other live entertainment event tickets is using Alexa to enable customers to purchase tickets and more using voice. At StubHub, we are constantly thinking of ways to make the live event experience easier and more fun, said Parag Vaish, Head of Mobile at StubHub. By bringing StubHub's great experience to Alexa, we're able to reach more fans by allowing our customers to use their voice to engage with our content to do things like ask, Alexa, ask StubHub what events are happening this weekend near me?' or Alexa, ask StubHub to send event suggestions to me for tomorrow.'
Octoblu, Citrixs enterprise Internet of Things platform, is using ASK for voice-activated automation of business tasks, like setting up meetings on Citrix GoToMeeting. The Alexa Skills Ki
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Amazon Introduces the Alexa Skills Kit-A Free SDK for Developers 
