Amazon Echo: Voice Enablement Will Be Major API Driven Channel In The Future

I've been tracking on the potential for voice APIs since Siri was first announced, a topic that often meant telephony like from Twilio, or audio transcription from Popup Archive and Clarify. When I close my eyes and think about the the future of APIs and voice enablement, it is more akin to the Siri example, where the digital world is (supposedly) just a voice command away.

Imagine making all your employee directory, company calendar, or product catalog available via voice commands. How do you do this? You do it with APIs, and a voice enablement platform in-between the application developers, and the available API resources. Much like all other voice enablement, I think we have a huge amount of work to get anywhere close to the pictures we all have in our head, when if comes to voice enablement.

It is my mission to find these signs across the API landscape, and keep an eye on what they are doing. One platform that is now open for beta is Amazon Echo. Amazon says, "Echo is designed around your voice. It's always on—just ask for information, music, news, weather, and more.” APIs are how we will deliver on the “more” part of this equation. The difference between Apple Siri, and Amazon Echo at this point, is Amazon will let you (API providers) help deliver on the “more” part of Amazon Echo discovery equation.

I’m signing up for the beta, and if I get access, I will share more stories. I encourage you to sign up as well, and if you have any work your doing with Amazon Echo, or know of other API driven voice-enablement platforms I should be paying attention to, let me know.