Amazon Reading Sidekick & Kids Voice Profiles

Amazon Enhances Alexa for Young Readers and Introduces Personalized Voice Profiles

Amazon has unveiled a new capability designed to transform Alexa into an interactive reading partner for children. Simultaneously, the company is launching Alexa Voice Profiles for Kids, a feature intended to tailor the Alexa experience to each child within a household across all connected Echo devices.

Reading Sidekick: An Interactive Reading Experience

These two advancements are intrinsically linked. The Voice Profile functionality enables Alexa to discern who is speaking, allowing for a customized response to commands such as “Alexa, let’s read.” This initiates Amazon’s new Reading Sidekick feature.

Access to Reading Sidekick requires an active Amazon Kids+ subscription. This service, priced at $2.99 monthly, grants families access to a vast library of age-appropriate content. This includes thousands of books, TV programs, movies, educational applications, and games.

How Reading Sidekick Works

With a current Amazon Kids+ subscription, a child can request Alexa to join them in reading. They then select a compatible physical book or ebook to begin.

Alexa will inquire about the chosen book and the desired reading duration – a substantial portion, a smaller segment, or alternating turns. The feature is compatible with hundreds of children’s books, designed for ages 6-9, available through the Amazon Kids+ subscription, in both print and digital formats.

During the child’s reading turn, Alexa actively listens and provides positive reinforcement for successful reading. It also offers assistance when the child encounters difficulties.

Personalized Alexa Experiences with Voice Profiles

New Alexa Voice Profiles for Kids are now being deployed. This optional feature allows parents or guardians to create a unique voice profile for each child, supporting up to four children.

When activated, Alexa personalizes the experience based on the identified speaker. This includes automatically applying pre-configured parental controls, filtering explicit music, restricting communication to approved contacts, and limiting access to parent-approved Alexa skills.

Furthermore, Alexa will offer age-appropriate games, skills, music, and videos, and provide responses tailored to children’s questions.

Data Privacy Considerations

While these features enhance the Alexa experience for families, parents should consider the implications of voice recording and analysis. Amazon utilizes children’s voice recordings to refine Alexa’s speech recognition and natural language processing capabilities.

In certain instances, these recordings are subject to manual review. Parents can delete individual or all recordings associated with their child’s history through the Alexa app settings. Automated deletion options are also available, set to occur every 3 or 18 months, or via voice command.

However, opting out of voice recording prevents access to the child’s request history within the Parent Dashboard.

Making Informed Decisions

Parents must carefully evaluate the benefits and privacy considerations before enabling features like Reading Sidekick or Voice Profiles. This extends to a broader assessment of integrating any smart speaker into the home environment.

Amazon anticipates that the new Alexa Voice Profiles for Kids will be available to all customers by Friday, July 2. Reading Sidekick is currently available for use.