In the US, Amazon has inked pacts with several iconic celebrities such as Samuel L Jackson of Pulp Fiction fame to become the voice of Alexa for its Echo range of smart speakers and Internet of Things (IoT) gadgets. Now, the company has signed up Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan for its Indian market.
If you own an Amazon Echo speaker, just say the phrase-- ''Hey Alexa, Say hello to Amitabh Bachchan". The superstar will speak to you and interact with Alexa for a few minutes.
However, the full-fledged response feature with Amitabh Bachchan's voice will only be available early next year in India.
“Cricket and Bollywood are integral to Alexa’s unique Indian personality. Mr. Bachchan’s voice is truly memorable for any Indian who has grown-up with Bollywood. This combination delivers a perfect pitch to further delight and simplifies the lives of our customers. We are excited to see how our customers will respond when they use Alexa and hear his voice,” said Puneesh Kumar, Country Leader for Alexa, Amazon India.
This is how Amitabh Bacchan will become the voice of Alexa
Amazon uses its advanced 'neural text-to-speech' engine to impersonate celebrities' voices on Alexa-powered devices. However, the company first takes the voice samples of the person uttering test phrases containing commonly asked questions.
Then, Amazon feeds them to the computer and runs its special application to recreate the audio identical to the celebrity's own voice.
With this, Amazon Echo smart speaker owners can expect their Alexa to respond, in this case, in Amitabh Bachchan's voice for all queries, in 2021.
"The Amazon Alexa team will work closely with Mr. Bachchan to capture the iconic voice from the Shehenshah of Bollywood and deliver a unique voice experience to customers. It will include popular offerings like jokes, weather, shayaris, motivational quotes, advice and more. When launched next year, customers in India can easily invoke the Amitabh Bachchan skill by just asking Alexa and instantly getting their favourite superstar’s voice responding to popular requests," the company said.
Amitabh Bachchan's voice is likely to be limited to Hindi. However, it remains to be seen how much Amazon will charge Echo smart-speaker customers, to avail Amitabh Bachchan's voice feature. In the US, it charges $1 (approx. Rs 73.33) plus taxes for the Samuel L. Jackson voice (US English) feature.
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