This Saturday, November 6, Alexa celebrates 3 years of having arrived in Mexico. In this time, Amazon’s virtual assistant has not only gotten smarter, but has acquired a very peculiar personality, thanks to which it offers an authentic experience for Mexicans, since she understands the social context, the local accents, the phrases and peculiarities of the Mexican language, so Alexa already has a very Mexican touch.
In this way, Alexa not only helps make life easier for users, but also adds a fun touch to people’s day-to-day lives, thanks to elements that it has added, such as “Modes”, among which stand out the taco mode, soap opera mode, teen mode, football mode, among others, that can be activated just by asking: “Alexa, northern mode”.
Thus, Alexa has helped Mexicans to stay informed about global and local events, control compatible smart home devices, make calculations, translations, play music, watch series and movies, tell them jokes, give them the weather, configure routines and much more.
About, Alejandro Sobrino, product manager for Alexa Mexico, commented that the most important thing when making improvements to Alexa and adding features or functions is the feedback they receive from users., which is generally quite positive, because people like both the personality that Alexa has been given for Mexico, as well as its functions applied to various areas, from entertainment and the control of the elements of the smart home, to information and productivity issues.
“Our policy is not to think about competition (to develop or improve products), the compass that guides our actions is the feedback from our users, so we have functionalities that are adapted to the needs of the consumer and that help improve their experience”, Explained the manager of Alexa México.
Sobrino added that, in the future, what they seek is to continue focusing on the needs of users and the opinion they have of their products and services, in order to help them make their lives easier and also focusing on mobility issues with Alexa on the go, which allows you to take Alexa on the go.
In this sense, it is worth highlighting the implementation of Alexa Auto, with Buick Envision 2021 one of the first General Motors models to integrate the service, followed by some 2018 models onwards from the Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac portfolio. As well as the recently released Echo Buds, headphones with hands-free access to Alexa, which also feature a small and lightweight design and active noise cancellation technology, ideal for being on the go.
Regarding the use that users give to Alexa’s assistance services, it receives thousands of requests from Mexicans, from marriage proposals to reminders. Some of the most popular requests for Alexa this third year were:
– Most requested translations: how to say ‘happy birthday’ in English, ‘thank you’ in German and ‘hello’ in English / Japanese / Korean.
– Information: one of the most popular requests in this category was “Alexa, what rhymes with ‘jalapeño’?”
– Smart House: more than 55 million times they asked Alexa to turn off the light.
– Productivity: setting an alarm or timer were requested more than 22 million times.
– Personality: “Alexa, tell me a joke” was asked more than 10 million times and they said “thank you” more than 6 million times.
– Communication: They asked Alexa for help finding their smartphone nearly 1 million times.
– Music: the most requested genres were pop, band and classical music and “Las Mañanitas” were requested more than 2 million times.
As for skills, there are already more than 3,000 that are available in Mexico, in different categories. Some of the new ones added in 2021 were: Diana, in its version for meditation sessions and Diana yoga, for the practice of this discipline; Pure Trancazo, which offers 3 experiences with different icons of the Mexican region: concerts (where Alexa interacts with the artists and controls the stage), karaoke and simulated interviews; as well as TW reader, which allows Alexa to read aloud the main feed of users’ Twitter account, and even allows them to tweet, all through voice commands.
Finally, Among the new devices launched this third year are the Echo Show 10, the second generation Echo Show 5 and Echo Show 8, Echo Buds, and the Echo Show 15 announcement..
While Alexa is on third-party devices too, like Samsung’s entire 2021 line of smart TVs: Neo QLED 4K and 8K, Crystal UHD, some models of The Frame, The Serif, The Sero and The Terrace; as well as Totalplay TV, Totalplay’s high-end device with 4K, HDR and Dolby Atmos that integrates Alexa, which allows you to search by voice for programs, control the playback of series, movies and even music, through available streaming applications, as well as ask for things that you would normally ask Alexa on an Echo device.
For all this and for what is coming, Alexa, happy birthday!