Amazon’s voice assistant first released in the Echo smart speaker in 2014 was Alexa. The assistant was designed to respond to spoken commands and provide services such as music playback, weather information, timers, and smart-home control.
Amazon introduced the first-generation Echo in November 2014, initially as an invitation-only product for Amazon Prime customers in the United States. The Echo’s always-listening microphone array allowed it to detect a wake word before sending a request for processing.
Alexa is frequently confused with the Echo, but they are not the same thing. Echo is the hardware product, while Alexa is the software assistant and cloud service. Developers can extend Alexa through “skills,” which are integrations that add capabilities. The name also differs from Siri, Apple’s assistant, and Cortana, Microsoft’s former assistant.