AMAZON WEB SERVICES ANNOUNCES ALEXA FOR BUSINESS

"New service makes it easy for companies to voice-enable their offices with Alexa, giving workers an intelligent assistant"

Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS) recently announced Alexa for Business, a new AWS service that provides every employee with an intelligent assis- tant to simplify their interactions with the technology around them at work—in conference rooms, at their desks, and around the office.

Alexa for Business can help automate tasks like starting conference calls, controlling conference room equipment, scheduling meetings, keeping track of tasks, or reordering supplies. It also supports a large and growing list of new skills and integrations from companies like Salesforce, Concur, and Polycom that extend Alexa for Business’s functionality into the popular applications and devices customers already use in the workplace.

Companies can easily tailor Alexa for Business by building custom “private” skills that integrate with a customer’s IT applications and office systems. To help customers easily voice- enable their offices, Alexa for Business includes the tools to setup and manage Alexa devices, enroll users, and assign skills- at scale.

Today, people spend too much of their days on tedious tasks at work—dialing into meetings, managing their calendars, or searching for information. And, the office technologies designed to help employees stay productive often just add to the load.

Alexa for Business allows people to use their voices to interact with technology throughout their workdays. As an intelligent assistant at work, Alexa for Business makes starting a conference call as simple as asking Alexa to “start the meeting.”