Hello, main Amitabh Bachchan bol raha hoon... Alexa pe

Amazon has announced the availability of India’s first celebrity voice feature on Alexa, with the iconic actor Amitabh Bachchan. To drive the point home, Bachchan stars in an ad where he is seated on a table in the middle of a busy household. We see all the family members interacting with him so that the users get an idea of the kind of features they will have access to with Bachchan's voice.

Users can choose to add Bachchan’s voice to their Alexa experience on Echo devices, or by pressing the mic icon on the Amazon shopping app (Android only) for an introductory price of Rs 149 for one year. Just say, “Alexa, introduce me to Amitabh Bachchan” to start the purchase and interact with Bachchan’s voice using his nickname ‘Amit ji’.

Amazon wants to give users a full experience when it comes to interacting with Bachchan's voice. The celebrity experience features content handpicked by the actor himself. It features content, like stories from his life, a selection of poems by his father, tongue twisters, motivational quotes, and more.

In addition to the content, customers can also ask for music, set alarms and get weather updates in Bachchan’s signature baritone. For other tasks, like shopping, general information, routines, smart home control, skills, and more, users will hear Alexa's regular voice.

Just ask, “Amit ji, play songs from Kabhi Kabhi” or “Amit ji, Sholay ke gaane bajaiye” or simply say, “Amit ji, tell us a funny story” to hear some fun behind-the-scenes info. Immerse yourself in the world of poetry by just asking, “Amit ji, koi kavita sunaiye” or “Amit ji, recite Madhushala”. Add a special touch to birthday celebrations with greetings in Bachchan's voice. Just ask, “Amit ji, it’s my birthday”.

“At Amazon and Alexa, we consistently innovate on behalf of our customers, and building the Amitabh Bachchan celebrity voice experience, with one of India’s most iconic voices, has been a labour of love. Creating the world’s first bilingual celebrity voice required us to invent and reinvent across almost every element of speech science – wake word, speech recognition, neural text-to-speech and more,” said Puneesh Kumar, country leader for Alexa, Amazon India.

“We are proud of the many India-first innovations and desi-delighters in this, and will continue to enrich this experience as science evolves.”

Getting started with Amit ji’s voice on Alexa:

To enable this feature and start conversations with Amit ji’s voice, you need to be “introduced” by Alexa.

Once setup, you can simply ask ‘Amit ji’ to inspire, entertain and cheer you daily. Amit ji’s voice experience today understands the same languages that Alexa can on your compatible devices. On your Echo devices, you can interact with Alexa and Amit ji in English, Hindi, or both. To change the language, go to the device settings on your Alexa app, or just say, “Alexa, speak in Hindi” to your Echo device. On the Amazon shopping app, Amit ji and Alexa can interact in English only at launch.

Internationally, Alexa featured the voice of actor Samuel L Jackson in 2019. Apart from hearing a set of commands and information in Jackson's voice, users can also choose if they would like the assistant to use explicit language in the actor's voice.