Amazon adds Alexa voice assistant to Alexa app

Amazon has added its voice assistant Alexa in the app of the same name. The assistant offers all the functions that it also has on the Echo, although it is not possible to activate a telephone with a voice command.

With the Amazon voice assistant it is possible to give all the usual commands, such as playing music and activating Alexa skills, writes TechCrunch. To use the assistant, the Alexa app must be opened first, as it does not support activation with a voice command.

The app, which previously only served as a means to set up an Echo or other smart home device, is available on Google Play, the Amazon Appstore and the iOS App Store. The update with the voice assistant is not yet available for the latter, but it is being worked on.

With the integration into smartphones, Amazon is taking another step in making Alexa widely accessible. For example, the Motorola Moto X4 already has Alexa built in. Earlier this month, some manufacturers announced that they would be integrating Alexa into upcoming Windows 10 computers. Microsoft and Amazon have also announced that Alexa and Cortana will complement each other.