Amazon Is Now Allowing Anyone to Create Custom Alexa Commands

We’ve all seen voice assistants in movies responding back to their users with personalized answers and inside jokes. Well, we’re one step closer to that reality with Amazon’s Alexa Blueprints.

The new software allows Alexa owners to put together their own custom Alexa responses or skills. No need to be an expert IoT developer or coder. You can create trivia games, bedtime stories, or compile a list of your favorite jokes.

A Family Friend

The Seattle-based tech giant’s target market for Alexa Blueprint right now is families. Kids enjoy using Alexa, and there are already over 500 public Alexa skills made for kids. Alexa’s main purpose lends it to become a central part of the smart home.

College students can use the Blueprint to set up flash cards. Airbnb renters could create a skill for their houseguests with helpful information on the house and surrounding areas.

Steve Rabuchin is Vice President of Alexa at Amazon. His family loves playing with Alexa; “Alexa Skill Blueprints is an entirely new way for you to teach Alexa personalized skills just for you and your family. You don’t need experience building skills or coding to get started—my family created our own jokes skill in a matter of minutes, and it’s been a blast to interact with Alexa in a totally new and personal way.”

What Would You Like Alexa to Do?

After visiting the website, you can select a template in categories like At Home, Fun and Games, Storyteller, and Learning and Knowledge. You can pick options for what to have Alexa say or do, and it doesn’t take long before your skill is active. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can create your own template from scratch.

Publish your skill to make it available to Alexa-enabled devices in your Amazon account. It can be private or public, meaning it will be displayed in the Alexa Skills Store. From there, you can always disable or delete skills as needed.

Ahead of the Rest

This rollout certainly puts Amazon on a completely different level from its competitors. This is the highest level of customization available right now compared to Apple’s HomePod and Google Home. Amazon’s market share of the smart home speaker market is almost 70%. It’s already ahead with public adoption, and now it will be tough for Apple and Google to catch up.

What would be the first skill you set up with Alexa?