Amazon has announced that digital voice Alexa developers can sign up to preview Alexa Knowledge Skills, a skill type that enables users, such as employees & customers, to ask questions about an organization’s spreadsheet data without invoking a skill name.
It said on its official blog that users can ask Alexa about different types of data – org charts, building information, events, FAQs, glossaries, product catalogs, etc, by simply saying “Alexa” & then asking their question.
Building Knowledge skills requires no coding & no AWS infrastructure, only a spreadsheet of data & the Alexa for Business or Alexa for Hospitality service. Like all private Alexa skills, Knowledge skills remain accessible only on devices within an organization.
Knowledge skills offer four key benefits:
- Spreadsheet data input: upload & refresh your tabular data in bulk via spreadsheet files. This makes it easy to have your skill answer questions about large amounts of data quickly.
- Flexible understanding: Knowledge skills use Alexa’s intelligence to support flexible questions out of the box.
- No code or infrastructure: building a Knowledge skill requires no coding or AWS infrastructure. Anyone who is familiar with spreadsheets can build one.
- No skill invocation: you do not need to remember & state your Knowledge skill’s name before interacting with it. Simply say, “Alexa” & then ask your question.
Image Credit: Amazon
