Last year, Amazon India had roped in Bollywood celebrity Amitabh Bachchan to give his voice to Alexa. The 78-year-old actor is the first Indian celebrity to record his voice for one of the most popular voice assistants in India. Bachchan joins American actor and producer Samuel L. Jackson in the list of celebrities to have given their voice for Amazon Alexa. Users can access Bachchan’s voice to listen to the stories from his life, a selection of poems by his father and popular Indian poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan, tongue twisters, motivational quotes, and even his favourite songs, according to Gadgets360.
The Jeff Bezos-found company is also working on bringing Bachchan’s signature style when asked for music, alarms, and weather updates. To interact with the actor’s voice, users will first need to pay a Rs 149 introductory fee, which will later be set to Rs 299 for a year. Once the service is active, you can say “Alexa, enable Amit Ji wake word.” It will work alongside the default “Alexa” wake word. You can call the voice assistant by using the wake word “Alexa” and at the same time use, “Amit Ji” to speak with the actor’s voice. For example, you can ask “Amit Ji, play songs from Kabhi Kabhi” or “Amit Ji, Sholay ke gaane bajaiye” to listen to some old music tracks from the actor’s movies.
In addition to this, users can also ask Amazon Alexa to tell a funny story in the actor’s voice. They can explore more such experiences by asking “Amit Ji, what can you do?”. The report states that Bachchan will respond to queries in Hindi and English.
One needs to note that Bachchan’s voice will not answer all sorts of queries. The report states that general information-requiring queries such as arithmetic problems and geographical questions will still be answered in Alexa’s own voice. It was intentional as the gist of bringing celebrity voices to Alexa is to make people interact with celebrities and not to replace the original voice.
Bachchan’s voice is currently limited to Echo devices. Users on the Amazon shopping app on Android devices will also be able to interact with the new voice but only in English in the initial stage.
