
Amazon announced the Voice Interoperability Initiative, an agreement with multiple companies aimed at ensuring its voice-controlled digital assistant Alexa works with other voice driven services. The companies will work on making voice services work seamlessly alongside one another on a single device, and designing voice-enabled products to support multiple wake words.
More than 30 companies are supporting the effort, including Amazon, Baidu, BMW, Bose, Cerence, Ecobee, Harman, Logitech, Microsoft, Salesforce, Sonos, Sound United, Sony Audio Group, Spotify and Tencent; telecommunications operators Free, Orange, SFR and Verizon; hardware providers Amlogic, InnoMedia, Intel, MediaTek, NXP Semiconductors, Qualcomm Technologies, SGW Global and Tonly; and systems integrators CommScope, DiscVision, Libre, Linkplay, MyBox, Sagemcom, StreamUnlimited and Sugr.
Alexa is already designed to support multiple, simultaneous wake words. As a result, any device maker building with the Alexa Voice Service can add other voice services as well. The interoperability initiative is designed to make this easier for developers, building in support also from components makers for multiple voice services.