Amazon Alexa, the powerful virtual assistant found inside the retail giant’s Echo speaker, is now available in your browser. It can answer your questions and even control your smart devices, and all you need is an Amazon account and a microphone.
The Alexa in the browser project was actually started by Nexmo developer Sam Machin at a hackathon in 2015, according to TechCrunch, but now Amazon is bringing it to the masses at Echoism.io. That means you don’t need to buy an Amazon speaker to enjoy Alexa.
There are some things Alexa in your browser cannot do — like stream your music — but if you’ve wondered what the virtual assistant is capable of, now’s your chance to try it out. Amazon will be hoping it can convince you to pick up one of its speakers, which really are terrific.
To get started, simply visit Echoism.io, login with your Amazon account, and click the microphone button.
Echoism.io comes at an interesting time, with Apple reportedly working on its very own Alexa rival that could be baked into Apple TV. But for it to be half as good as Alexa, Apple will need to embrace third-party integration; its usual locked down approach simply won’t work.
