Amazon has long offered the ability tochange Alexa’s voice to a celebrity voice. However, you had to manually enable a skill on Amazon’s website to do so. Now, the company has made the process much easier, plus it’s introduced new celebrity voices for you to try. Here’s what you need to know, including how to easily change Alexa’s voice.
Which celebs can replace Alexa’s voice?
Amazon has its own version ofGoogle Assistant cameo voices- but for Alexa devices, obviously -and it all started with Samuel L Jackson. Former NBA star Shaquille O’Neal and actress Melissa McCarthy are the latest personalities to lend their voice as a replacement for Alexa’s voice. Either option can provide weather reports, jokes, and personal stories when asked.
Samuel L Jackson’s voice, and presumably the others too, are mostly powered by Amazon’s neural text-to-speech model. Amazon leverages deepfake tech to create voices so that celebrities don’t have to pre-record all their responses. While they do prep some canned answers, many, including ones about weather, etc, are likely neural responses generated by Amazon’s model.
How to get a celebrity voice on your Echo
Toquickly enable a celebrity voice, follow these steps:
Tomanually enable a celebrity voice, follow these steps:
Note:Interestingly, Amazon offers both explicit and clean versions of Samuel L Jackson’s voice. you may enable or disable explicit contentvia the Alexa app.
How to invoke a celebrity voice on Echo
Shaquille O’Neal
Just use the wake words “Hey Shaq". You can then say something like:
Melissa McCarthy
Use the wake words “Hey Melissa". You can then say something like:
Samuel L Jackson
For Jackson, say, “Alexa, ask Samuel L" Jackson", followed by a query.
How much do celebrity voices cost?
They each cost $4.99 in the US.
Are celebrity voices on Echo English-only?
Yes, the ones currently available as an Alexa replacement are English-only.
