Amazon Alexa

Amazon Alexa, known simply as Alexa, is a virtual assistant developed by Amazon, first used in the Amazon Echo and the Amazon Echo Dot smart speakers developed by Amazon Lab126.

A smart speaker is a type of wireless speaker and voice command device with an integrated virtual assistant that offers interactive actions and hands-free activation with the help of one "hot word".

A virtual assistant or intelligent personal assistant is a software agent that can perform tasks or services for an individual based on verbal commands.

In audio signal processing and acoustics, echo is a reflection of sound that arrives at the listener with a delay after the direct sound.

Amazon Echo & Alexa 10 Everyday Uses 2.0 by Craig's Tech Talk

It is capable of voice interaction, music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms, streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, and providing weather, traffic, sports, and other real-time information, such as news.

News is information about current events.

Not Everything Makes the Cut – Amazon Super Bowl LIII Commercial by amazon

Alexa can also control several smart devices using itself as a home automation system.

A smart device is an electronic device, generally connected to other devices or networks via different wireless protocols such as Bluetooth, NFC, Wi-Fi, LiFi, 3G, etc., that can operate to some extent interactively and autonomously.

Home automation or domotics is building automation for a home, called a smart home or smart house.

Users are able to extend the Alexa capabilities by installing "skills".

Most devices with Alexa allow users to activate the device using a wake-word ; other devices require the user to push a button to activate Alexa's listening mode.

Currently, interaction and communication with Alexa are only available in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese.

In Canada, Alexa is available in English and in French.As of September 2017, Amazon had more than 5,000 employees working on Alexa and related products.

In January 2019, Amazon's devices team announced that they had sold over 100 million Alexa-enabled devices.