Amazon has rolled out a significant update for its digital assistant, Alexa. In order to make conversing easier, they’ve added the ability for users to ask follow up questions without necessarily having to repeat the trigger word, that is, Alexa. This update is aimed at making the interactive experience seem more natural.
If you don’t already know, Alexa comes on all of Amazon’s Echo devices to enable communication between the device and its users. Until now, users would have to say Alexa to engage the always-on speak and then ask their question… Every time.
With the new update, the user can ask a multitude of questions after saying Alexa just once such as, ‘When is Android P going to be launched?’ followed by ‘When will the Android P update roll out on Xiaomi phones?’ and ‘Will Android Go also receive an Android P update?’ without having to repeat the name.
In order to make sure that the speaker isn’t always awake, Amazon as limited the span of time between follow up questions to five seconds after the first request is answered. The user will know that the speaker is on via the blue lights being lit to indicate that Alexa is still listening. If the user wants to disengage manually, all they have to do is say, ‘thank you’ or ‘stop’.
This new feature is coming out on the Amazon Echo, Echo Dot and the Echo Spot. The feature isn’t going to activated by default, so users will have to manually enable it. The follow-up mode option should be listened in the hamburger menu just below the time zone.
The update hasn’t come to India as of now, but should be rolled out in the coming days.
