Rohit Prasad, Vice President and Head Scientist for Alexa told IANS at re: Mars event, “Yes, we are working on infusing regional languages capabilities in Alexa for the Indian market but these are early days. Right now, Alexa can understand some Hinglish commands but these are few and far between. For us, it is a contextual, cultural as well as content-related challenge as the question is not that Alexa just needs to understand Hindi. This part we can do relatively easily but Alexa needs to be Indian when it speaks in Hindi as there are several dialects and accents out there which Alexa has to understand and react accordingly. These are challenges which are not language dependent but more culture dependent. We believe in introducing a wholesome experience to delight our customers and not something that is half-baked. We are working on to solve these issues in the Indian context.”
