Amazon’s talking virtual assistant has a new Aussie voice, with a choice for owners of an Echo speaker now available: girl or guy.
You don’t necessarily need to stick to one style of virtual assistant, it seems, as Amazon expands its Australian-sounding smart speaker voice on local speakers.
While owners of an Amazon speaker in the US can hear American sounding voices for Alexa, and owners in the UK can hear one that sounds a little like Alexa is from their part of the world, Australians may have become used to the female voice of Alexa sounding a little Australian. And now, there’s a male voice local to our region, as well.
Still called “Alexa”, though you might want to think of it as “Alex”, the addition of an Australian male voice is one that’s reportedly rolling out to Australian Amazon accounts that use Echo speakers in the coming days, whether or not you use “Alexa”, “Computer”, “Echo”, or “Amazon” as the trigger words to wake your smart speaker.
The new male voice won’t be forced for users, either, with a choice of either girl or guy when you talk to your speaker, able to be switched when you say to your speaker “change your voice”, but with that trigger word before it (such as “Echo, change your voice”).
The rollout is likely just in time for Amazon’s new Echo speakers to arrive, which were announced back in September, and are due for release roughly now.
