Gone are the days where users have to dig through the deep depths of the skills marketplace to find the skill that they desire. Amazon recently rolled out a new feature called Skill Arbitration that is going to change the way that skills will be found.
In the fancy words of Amazon themselves:
"In the coming weeks, we’re rolling out this new capability that allows customers in the U.S. to automatically discover, enable and launch skills using natural phrases and requests."
In layman’s terms, when Alexa doesn’t have the information you ask for, it looks for the right skill to get you the answer. Now it will be possible for smaller niche skills to gain some penetration into the skill market.
Let's say you have a stain on that nice shirt that you were gonna wear to that business meeting, but you don’t know how to get the stain off. Being the tech enthusiast that you are, you decide to ask Alexa. Alexa will gracefully handle your request by suggesting you a skill that can handle the situation of getting a stain off by possibly suggesting the Tide skill as described in the announcement article here.
With this new functionality, this gives any third-party skill opportunity for exposure all for free! This helps to encourage meaningful interactions between your ideal customer demographic and your third-party skill. No need for paid advertising, your own skills can now market themselves based on your own target demographic. I now envision a frenzy of enterprising scrambling to get their hands on their own skills so that they can get their share in the Skill Arbitration process. Getting a skill in the store today will give any type of business an edge over their competitors. Businesses that leverage voice interfacing will enjoy the fastest growing technology platform to date.
Graph showing massive growth of smart speaker technology within the past year
Analysis of current sales trends hints at forecasted growths that appear to be absolutely astronomical. Due to the extremely high penetration rates of the smart speaker markets, smart speakers are set to become an integral component of the reality we will live in tomorrow. In translation, any type of corporation will hopefully seek Alexa based opportunities to get their share of the emerging technology. Rollouts of the arbitration mixed with a massive consumer demand for smart speakers such as Alexa is a mixture for success when it comes to business.
As of last week, Amazon has also released a new feature for Alexa that allows you to sell products and services as well as subscription services all through Alexa. Monetization is a key component that will enable enterprises to add revenue streams all through voice commands. Have an idea of how you can apply a skill to your own business? Don’t know where to start? Check us out here and feel free to connect with us, we would love to help.