Today, we’re excited to announce that developers can start building voice experiences for customers in Italy and Spain using the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK). Skills that developers create now will be available for customers when Alexa launches in Italy and Spain later this year. Commercial hardware manufacturers developing Alexa-enabled products for Italian and Spanish customers can request early access to the invite-only Alexa Voice Service developer preview. Along with the Echo family of devices, Sonos and Bose will be bringing Alexa-enabled products later this year.
Build for Voice with the Alexa Skills Kit
ASK is a collection of self-service APIs and tools that make it fast and easy for developers to create new voice-driven capabilities, or skills, for Alexa. Developers don’t need experience with speech recognition or natural language understanding—Alexa does all the work to hear, understand, and process the customer’s spoken request so developers don’t have to.
It’s easy to start building voice experiences for Alexa. Explore our simple tutorials or watch our on-demand webinars to learn how to build a skill quickly. If you want to build a multi-language Alexa skill, read our technical documentation to learn how to create a skill in all language models, including English for the US, India, the UK, Canada, and Australia, as well as German, Japanese, French, and now Italian and Spanish.
Update Your Existing Skill and Reach New Customers
If you’re an Alexa developer and want to engage new customers in Italy and Spain, you can enhance your existing skill by extending support for the new Italian and Spanish language models by following these simple steps for Spanish and Italian.
Integrate Alexa Into Your Devices with the Alexa Voice Service
The Alexa Voice Service (AVS) enables developers to integrate Alexa directly into their products, bringing the convenience of voice control to any connected device. AVS provides a suite of resources, including APIs, hardware development kits, software development kits, and documentation. Later this year, device makers will be able to leverage these resources to launch Alexa-enabled products in Italy and Spain with access to the Italian and Spanish language model and regional services like Alexa skills. Commercial device makers can request early access to our invite-only developer preview now.
Start Building Alexa Skills Today
Need help as you get started? Connect with the Alexa community on our developer forums. Join us at an upcoming webinar and get your questions answered by an Alexa evangelist or a solutions architect.
Webinar: How Building for Voice Differs From Building for the Screen
Spain: July 2
Italy: July 3
Webinar: Build Your First Voice Experience with Amazon Alexa
Italy: July 17
Spain: July 19
Participate in the Alexa Preview Program
We have an opportunity for you to participate in the Alexa preview in Italy and in Spain. The first 100 developers, respectively in Italy and Spain, who have their Spanish or Italian language skill certified for publication and submit the form before July 31 will be eligible to receive an Echo device, and will be invited to join the Alexa preview. Sign up for the Alexa preview in Italy and Spain.