“Ziki, change your voice”: Alexa gets extra voice and activation word

Amazon’s Digital Voice Assistant now has an additional voice option. The original voice is retained and users can switch between the two options at any time. If the original voice is female, the new voice option can be used to convert to male voice.

Male voice for Alexa

Amazon has always insisted in the past that Alexa has no gender and has always avoided this in communications. The transition between the two voices now being made is done by voice with the command “.Alexa, change your voice“At this time, the computer base has not yet been able to switch to the new voice in self – examination, Alexa still responds.”I am afraid I will not be able to change my voice.“As usual, the release will take some time, so the new voice will only reach all users in the coming days. But if you want to get the new voice now, Amazon has prepared a short video for you.

With the new voice option, you can communicate with Alexa in both German and English without having to change the device’s language settings through the Alexa app.

The masculine voice for Alexa had already appeared in the United States this summer, but Germany had no equal representative. In addition, some celebrities in the United States have lent their voices to Alexa and can also implement accents.

The new implementation term “Ziki” is coming in 2022

With “Ziki”, Alexa will receive the new fifth activation word next year, which can be replaced with the Alexa app as before. Except for “Alexa” and “Ziki”, the operating terms “Computer”, “Echo” and “Amazon” are still available. Like all other active words, “Ziki” can be used for both voice options. In the announcement, Amazon did not explain why Ziki was selected. On the one hand, it’s less familiar than Alexa and less likely to be misidentified, on the other hand, Amazon always stands for “A to Z”, which now applies to digital voice assistants as well. Or there may be one or two David Bowie fans on the development team.

Amazon has not yet provided an exact date for when “Ziki” will be implemented in Germany next year. Ziki also appeared as a new implementation word in the United States in the middle of this year.