Good Morning Dear Reader,
In the late 2000s, Amazon engineers working on the third version of the Kindle e-book reader wanted to kill a feature that was planned for the device—an in-built microphone. The Kindle, after all, didn't have any features that could have actually used one. However, their efforts were blocked by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who believed that "in the future, we'll talk to our devices."
Bezos, a known sci-fi buff, eventually gave in. However, he would eventually realise his wish to build a "Star Trek computer"—an AI device that could serve as a personal assistant. In late 2014, Amazon unveiled the Amazon Echo, a cylindrical speaker that became synonymous with the name of Amazon's virtual assistant, Alexa. It would go on to become a universally recognised product, with the company selling more than 100 million Echo devices in just over four years.
Today, there aren't many tasks that Alexa can't assist you with. From playing your favourite song, to fetching weather updates, to solving math equations, to getting Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan to tell you a joke. But how about something a bit more complicated, like reminding you to pay your phone bill, and then enabling that payment instantly via India's real-time payments system UPI or credit and debit cards, totally hands-free? (You can already do this via the Amazon Pay wallet in India, but it's limited to a handful of use cases.)
As our CEO Yusuf Bhandarkar writes in today's article, Amazon India has pumped millions of dollars into creating an all-encompassing payment authentication system based on Alexa. The feature will authenticate users by their voice and enable hands-free transactions via multiple payment methods entirely within the voice ecosystem. And, if successful, India would be the first country in the world to get this game-changing feature.
Not only would this benefit millions of Echo users, but it would also provide a medium for Alexa’s 100,000 India-based developers to monetise by building multiple solutions on top of it. “Just like Uber exists because of Android, there could be some billion dollar startups that could be coming out of voice-based systems,”From "Computer, initiate self-destruct" in Star Trek to soon, possibly, "Alexa, renew my subscription to The Mumbai Multimedia Studio," the future is (almost) certain.
