Amazon has been aggressive lately in beefing up it's AI Assistant Alexa, fitting it with many features like warming up smart mattresses and helping out in the kitchen with recipes found online. This year, Amazon plans to introduce Alexa into the smartphone race, fitting it in Huawei's Mate 9 flagship phone for the first time when it launches in the US.
According to the Verge, Huawei's Mate 9 will be pre-installed with an app that gives the phone access to Amazon's Alexa upon the smartphone's launch in the US. The app will have a user-friendly interface so users can talk to Alexa and have access to all Alexa's features like organizing lists and getting information online.
The HUAWEI MATE 9 will be the first smartphone to integrate with Amazon Alexa. Speak to the future #HuaweiCES2017 pic.twitter.com/Eg5NBhpV7j
— Huawei Mobile (@HuaweiMobile) January 5, 2017
With this, Alexa now will compete with Apple's Siri and Google's Google Assistant, which have been highly programmed as voice personal Assistants for their respective smartphones. The Amazon Alexa app will come to Huawei Mate 9 devices in Europe and Asia through over-the-air update.
According to TechCrunch, smartphone voice assistants have become so competitive over the years, with Apple's Siri remaining on the top of the industry while Google's Google Assistant is slowly catching up with upgrades. Samsung has also acquired the team that worked on Siri last year, hoping to push for its own AI personal voice assistant to compete in the market.
Other than being fitted into a smartphone, Amazon has other big plans for Alexa. Techcrunch also mentions that Ford plans to install Alexa in cars later this year, providing a car-to-home voice control system with Alexa embedded into Ford's infotainment system.
The Mate 9 will cost $600 and will have an 5.9-inch 1080p display, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of internal storage, and a rear dual-camera system. With Huawei being the first smartphone to be fitted with Alexa, it won't take long until other smartphone developers will want to fit Alexa into their own devices.
