What Amazon Is Doing To Keep Alexa In The Lead

Voice-enabled smart devices is set to be the new game changer in consumers' lives.Andria Cheng Amazon has made Alexa practically a household name as the voice-assistant-enabled Fire TV stick and Echo devices rank among its best sellers and gives the online giant a dominant lead in the growing smart speaker market. But you'd be wrong to think that lead came just from those big discounts Amazon gave on the likes of Prime Day. On the campus of New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark on Tuesday, 2,500 developers, marketers, executives and other attendees from Panasonic and Lego to Capital One and Johnson & Johnson gathered for the three-day inaugural Voice Summit. While Amazon rivals like Microsoft and Google were also among attendees, the Seattle giant's presence was not to be missed: it's the event's largest sponsor among dozens. At the conference, which ends Thursday, attendees could hang out with Amazon Alexa staff and learn to code and ask questions, besides listening to various Amazon executives talking about the direction of voice and learning about Alexa initiatives across industries from retail and education to finance and healthcare.