Customers in India interact with the Amazon Alexa voice service millions of times in a day in Hindi and Hinglish for music, information, cricket scores, smart home control, setting alarms/reminders, and much more. In the last one year, the number of requests to Alexa in Hindi language have increased by over 52%. In addition to Amazon Echo devices, customers also interact with Alexa on the Amazon shopping app for Android, Fire TV devices and Alexa built-in speakers, TVs, smartphones, smart watches, and more products by various brands.
“Voice is the most powerful, yet simplest medium to interact with anyone. We have worked hard to make the Alexa voice service easy and useful by adding support for Hindi language, and updating it with content such as local information, music, Bollywood news, cricket scores and so on,” says Dilip R.S., Country Manager for Alexa, Amazon India. “I am excited to see the increase in usage of Alexa in Hindi over the last three years. This encourages us to keep innovating and add locally relevant information and features to Alexa.”
Maximum requests in Hindi are for music, smart home, and information
Customers are making the most out of their smart speakers by making hands-free requests to Alexa ranging from latest Bollywood songs to devotional mantras, and from switching on festive lighting compatible with Alexa, to asking about dates and details of upcoming festivals. Music, smart home, and information are the most popular type of questions people ask Alexa in Hindi. Ex. “Alexa, gaana bajaao”, “Alexa, light jalao”, and “Alexa, aaj kaun sa tyohaar hai?”.
Alexa’s Hindi features keep customers entertained
The availability of Alexa in Hindi and the ease of voice commands has resulted in users making millions of requests a day in Hindi, asking for diverse Hindi content such as chutkule (jokes), shayaris (poetry from Rekhta), Kabir ke dohe (Kabir’s couplets), Panchatantra stories, Ramayan Katha, Bollywood dialogues, Alexa Originals, an exclusive selection of fresh songs by four independent artists from India, and the delightful – Mr. Amitabh Bachchan’s voice on Alexa.
Customers are intrigued by Alexa’s personality
A human-like voice responding to their every request is a magical experience. The most popular questions to Alexa in Hindi are “Alexa, kya kar rahi ho?” and “Alexa, kaisi ho?”. On the other hand, Alexa is also armed with unique content in Hindi that you can listen to by asking “Alexa, hamari dosti par poem sunao”, “Alexa, kya tumhe garmi lagti hai?”, “Alexa, hans ke dhikhaao” “Alexa, sa re ga ma gaao” “Alexa, chutkula sunaao”, “Alexa, kahaani sunaao” and “Alexa, seeti bajaao”.
Multilingual mode and support for Hinglish
In many Indian households, customers speak in a mix of Hindi and English languages. With its multilingual mode, Alexa is equipped to answer questions in either of these languages simultaneously. Additionally, the Alexa Natural Language Understanding (NLU) team has improved the multilingual model for English and Hindi languages, which has made the voice service better at responding to mixed-language i.e. Hinglish customer requests. Ex: “Alexa, bedroom ki batti jalaa do”, “Alexa, Thursday ko Mumbai main weather kaisa hoga?” and, “Alexa, cart main ek scotch brite ka jhadu add kardo”.