Gulf Times

Amitabh to lend voice to Amazon’s Alexa

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Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan will be the first Indian celebrity to lend his voice to Amazon’s Alexa digital assistant starting next year, as the Silicon Valley giant expands its presence in the massive market.

Foreign firms such as Amazon have spent tens of billions of dollars in India in recent years as they fight for a piece of the the country’s burgeoning digital economy.

In a blog post on Monday, Amazon India said Bachchan’s “voice experience” feature will become available for purchase on Alexa next year.

“It will include popular offerings like jokes, weather, shayaris (poetry), motivation­al quotes, advice and more,” the firm said.

Alexa first rolled out celebrity voice options last year with actor Samuel L Jackson, following a similar move by Google the year before, which gave users the option of hearing singer John Legend on the Google Assistant.

“I am excited to create this voice experience,” the Bollywood megastar said on Amazon’s blog.

“With voice technology, we are building something to engage more effectivel­y with my audience and well-wishers.”

His earlier foray into vocal blogging in 2010, “Bachchan Bol-Bachchan Speak”, allowed fans to listen to pre-recorded messages by the star at the push of a button.

In addition to competing with voice-activated devices such as Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant for consumers, Amazon is battling Walmart-backed Flipkart and JioMart, owned by Mukesh Ambani, for a share of the online retail market.

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