Amazon Music today announced the rollout of new voice features that enables listeners to personalize their streaming music experience. Essentially, listeners can have a conversation with the service’s Alexa to find playlists and music for specific moods or occasions, “liking” or rejecting songs, identifying songs by lyrics and more, all through voice. The goal is for the combination of these new voice features to enable a more tailored music streaming experience, and to improve the listener’s ability to converse with Alexa.
The new features, available to Prime Music and Amazon Music Unlimited customers in the US on Echo devices and in the Amazon Music app for iOS and Android, include:
“Alexa, play music”
Now, when customers ask, “Alexa, play music,” they will receive a more personalized response based on a unique mix of advanced algorithms. “Alexa, play Music” will return music that incorporates the newly-launched features (below), including songs from a customer’s personalized playlists, and music they have liked or disliked. “Alexa, play music” will also incorporate the use of previously-launched voice features, including resurfacing forgotten songs customers haven’t heard in a while, or playing new music from artists a customer has asked Alexa to follow.
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Have a conversation with Alexa to discover new music
Customers will now be able to have an active conversation with Alexa to receive music and playlist recommendations better-tailored to them. Alexa will ask several basic questions to identify what the listener wants to hear, including specifics on occasion, genre, tempo, or mood. To start, customers can ask, “Alexa, help me find a holiday playlist,” “Alexa, help me find dinner music,” or “Alexa, help me find a playlist.” Alexa will respond by asking additional questions, customizing playback based on responses and listening history. In the coming weeks, customers will also be able to ask, “Alexa, recommend some new music” to further help with discovery or simply, “Alexa, what should I play?” By using cues from previous listening habits, and asking a few simple questions regarding your genres, eras and other preferences, Alexa will be able to anticipate what customers are in the mood to hear and suggest relevant music or new releases.
Tell Alexa what you like, or dislike
Listeners can now tell Alexa when they like or dislike any currently-playing song, album, playlist or station, by saying phrases like, “Alexa, I like this song,” “Alexa, this is my favorite,” or “Alexa, I don’t like this.” It can now understand what the announcement calls “implied likes” as well, referencing a listener’s most listened-to tracks to help inform music playback. Now, customers can also simply ask, “Alexa, play music I like,” and it will play a collection of favorites, based on most listened-to or previously liked songs.
For a limited time, new Amazon Music Unlimited customers can also get three months of the premium streaming tier for $0.99.
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