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What good is a smart display without highly visual experiences to go along with it? Rounding out the Amazon Echo Show and Echo Spot’s offerings are built-in Prime Photos integration and video flash briefings, to name a few, plus third-party apps from the likes of Campbell’s, Starbucks, and Kayak. But more is always better, no?
To that end, Getty Images today announced an “integration with Amazon” that’ll see the stock media agency’s library of sports, news, entertainment, archival, and creative photos “enhance” Alexa responses on Echo devices with screens. It’s currently live but limited to select questions, an Amazon spokesperson told VentureBeat, with expanded support to come over the next few weeks.
“Our premier collection of editorial, creative, and archival content is a natural fit for Amazon’s Echo products, bringing best-in-class visuals to Echo users,” Peter Orlowsky, senior vice president of strategic development, said in a statement. “We are honored to unite with Echo’s screen-based products and to use our deep library of content to give Alexa her best look yet.”
Here’s how it’ll work: When you search for an answer to a question about a person, place, or thing using an Echo Show or Echo Spot (for example, “Alexa, who won best Actress at tonight’s Academy Awards?” or “Alexa, what is the capital of Uruguay?”), an image from Getty’s archive of more than 200 million digital stills will accompany your result.
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It’s not clear when the new and improved Alexa voice search will go live or whether developers will be able to tap it to enhance their own apps. The spokesperson said that Amazon had “nothing to share” today on third-party availability.
One thing’s clear, though: Amazon’s not lying in wait for Google’s rumored Echo Show competitor. The Mountain View company reportedly has ambitious rollout goals for the upcoming device, with plans to sell “some [3] million units” in the months following its launch. If it were to meet those goals, it would far outpace Amazon, which managed to ship only 315,000 Echo Show units last year.
According to some reports, Amazon’s at risk of ceding its pole position in the smart speaker market. Canalys in August pegged the retailer’s smart speaker shipments at 4.1 million, short of Google’s 5.4 million. Its devices currently make up an estimated 68 percent of the market, but analysts expect that percentage to slip to 34 percent by 2022.
That’s still a decent chunk of change. Global Market Insights forecasts that the smart speaker market will be worth $30 billion by 2024.
Updated at 12:26 p.m. Pacific: Added clarifying comments from an Amazon spokesperson.
